Eureka Seven: Withdrawal Syndrome
by Rommel
Summary: Chapter 3 now up: With Anemone lying in the Gekko's infirmary, Dominic sets out the find the causes of her condition. But, perhaps more importantly, he struggles with the reasons behind it and with himself. All this while the city spiral out of control.
1. Physical Graffiti

Disclaimer: I don't own Eureka Seven. That would be Bones—the studio not the show with that dude from Angel. Anyway, this is my first non-Eva fic so there, you've been warned. Feedback is welcome. I hate having to put stuff between scenes, but FFN strips blank lines and non-breaking spaces. You can look this up on Darkscribes for better formating.

haven't had this one pre-read as none of my usual guys (and girls) have finished Eureka Seven and would not spoil it for them. Am I not merciful? If anyone wants to help proof-reading, I can certainly use you.

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Eureka Seven: Withdrawal Syndrome.

By: Rommel

One: "Physical Graffiti."

* * *

I

Fate had a sense of irony. Well, actually, maybe it had a really complicated sense of humor. Holland Novak would have thought that it—or whatever cosmological power ruled it—would not have seen it fit to match him up someone like Dewey for a brother. They had been nothing alike. Holland was brash and impulsive, the kind of guy who jumped before looking and wouldn't really care if someone told him he was jumping to his own death because it was the jump itself that mattered. Dewey was the scheming type. He didn't get off his bed without planing five or six moves ahead of it time. When he was having breakfast he'd already figured out what to have for lunch, a best laid plans kind of guy. If it was fate's idea of a joke Holland didn't get it.

It was a shame that it had to end the way it had. At least Renton and Eureka had gotten to be together out of the deal. That was something to be happy about. Maybe one day he could earn that, when he'd fixed Dewey's mess.

Holland ran his fingers across the collar of his uniform, a carryover from his SOF days. Slumped on his chair he still felt tense. He wasn't being shot at or hunted down, and didn't have to worry about having his LFO torn to pieces from beneath him by a war machine in the shape of a pink-haired girl—in other words, he was perfectly safe—but his danger sense kept warning that he was about make a huge mistake, very much like lining yourself up into your enemy's line of fire.

And yet he had to do it. He had to start somewhere.

"That uniform looks horrible on you. Good thing you quit."

Holland drew his eyes down the hall and recognized the man walking towards him. He smiled his usual sarcastic grin. "You following me or something?"

"Trouble loves company." Captain Jurgens, career military officer and one-time fellow renegade took a seat next to him. He was a tall man, well-built, and aside from the handlebar mustache, the sort you'd expect on recruitment posters. "Did he call you too?" He took off his black beret, revealing a slightly receding hairline.

Holland ran a hand through his tousled ash-gray hair, shaking his head. "Nope. I asked to see him. We go way back. Just thought I'd ask a favor."

"Part of that burden you vowed to carry?"

"Yeah, something like that. I might be a traitor and a hero all at once, but I've still got connections. The government might have seen our side of the thing, but that doesn't make them right, or make us wrong. Still as long I can, I'd figured I'd do something for the good of mankind. You?"

Jurgens leaned back, lifting his head to look at the garishly ornate ceiling. "Orders."

Holland almost laughed. "Military simplicity is a bliss."

"Not really. Orders are only as good as the intentions behind them. I think I learned that from you. But there really didn't seem to be any harm this time."

Sitting up a little straighter, Holland propped up his arm against the backrest. He looked up and down the hallway, taking only slight offense at the sumptuous decorations, the statues, the extremely expensive polished wooden floors. It reminded him so much of his old home, but when so many people were suffering out on the world it just seemed wrong that some select few should have so much.

"So what have you heard about the new government?" Jurgens asked him after a moment.

"Nothing much. I might be just over-thinking it, but it seems a sign of how bad things really are that both the nobles and the military are agreeing to work together. The kind of power vacuum left by Dewey is just the sort of thing that would make people fight each for the dubious honor of being the next Dewey. It's a good thing he didn't think to leave a successor or we'd had civil war for sure. But we could do without the mess."

"You know, the military still doesn't believe it," Jurgens said. "Most of them were just following orders, and as far as most of them believe they were doing the right thing. None of them witnessed what he was capable off firsthand. And it doesn't help that they lost a lot of good people."

Holland sighed. "Yeah, I think that if I hadn't already thought my brother a monster I'd have trouble believing it too. 'The dignity of the planet'. Really. How does that justify mass murder?"

"I suppose in the mind of a madman no real justification is needed. Mankind has been doing horrible things to each other since well before Dewey, and probably well after. Even things like the work of the Novak Foundation are just reincarnations of older evils. However, the blame can not be squarely placed on one man. Even madmen are only as dangerous as the sane people who follow."

"Yeah, Mankind is just peachy. But ..." Holland let his mind bring back the images of the Second Summer of Love, the moment when Renton went to get the one he loved and succeeded in winning for humanity a reprieve. He succeeded with his heart where Dewey had failed with his weapons and all the pain and death he'd caused people. A genuine smile came to his face.

Jurgens set his hand on Holland's shoulder. "I know what you mean. As long as a single descent human being remains, mistakes can be fixed."

"Gentlemen."

Both Holland and Jurgens lookd down the hallway as a slender girl with her dirty-blond hair tied up in a tight bun walked over to them. She had on a dark uniform, cut similar to those worm by female U.F. officers, but embroiled with the rich heraldic symbols of the house. "It has been a while, right Mr. Holland," she said politely.

Having the nagging suspicion that he had met her before, Holland tried his best to search his memory for her name, but came up blank. He was a little embarrassed to admit that he could forget such a detail a lovely young lady. He stood and hoped he could bluff his way out of that indiscretion "So you remember me?"

"Well, yes. You are only the greatest ref-boarder alive, of course," she beamed, and even serious demeanor could not hide her excitement.

Jurgens scoffed. It wasn't an insult against himself, Holland knew, Jurgens just didn't like lifting in general.

The girl turned her head to him. "Oh yes, Captain. I hope you forgive the Master for calling you like this, but he wished to meet both of you together. He hoped it would help make his point," she paused to consider her words. "I am afraid we are in a little bit of bad situation at the moment. Well, you'll see. If you would please come with me."

They were ushered into a rather spacious office, adorned with high windows that allowed a great deal of the morning light in. At the center there was large wooden desk around which several men were assembled. They all wore the U.F.'s colors except for one man, who had the rich clothing and impeccable bearing that distinguished the nobility. They had been talking heatedly, but once Holland and Jurgens entered the room, they fell quiet. The girl took her leave and closed the door behind them, and for some reason, Holland felt as if his only route of escape had been taken away and he was about to be shot.

Holland hadn't seen Jan Eicke in years, since before Ciudades del Cielo, and before all the troubles with Dewey started. In truth, he had no idea what to expect. He had left instructions with the Gekko—if he didn't return they were to blast off and somehow try to make lives for themselves in this brave new world. They were not—and he had been very explicit about this—to come and try to rescue him.

"Holland!" In a heartbeat, Jan covered the distance between them and clasped Holland's hand in a firm grip, smiling broadly. "So nice of you to come."

He let go of Holland and repeated the gesture to Jurgens. "Captain."

"I'm sorry to fall in on you like this," Holland said, casting a suspicious eye towards the assembled military men. "But I need to ask a favor."

Jan stiffened up, as if expecting some completely outrageous request that he could not possibly comply with.

Holland took a deep breath. "I want a clean slate for the Gekko."

"Absolutely not!" One of the military officers blared out, a Lieutenant-Colonel judging by the rank insignia on his black uniform. "That ship is responsible for more death and destruction than can be accurately calculated."

"It is also responsible for stopping Dewey!" Holland retorted.

"Your brother!"

Holland was ready to strike. Jan placed himself between him and the Colonel. "Gentlemen, please. We are not going to get anything done by throwing recriminations at each other. Holland is no more to blame for Dewey's actions than the bulk of the military for enabling them. Certainly we can all still be civilized around each other, or can't we? The only thing we need to focus on is how to solve what problems we have now. Listen," he looked at Holland, "I know you didn't come here to pick a fight. It is not in my power to give you a full pardon, regardless of how much I think you deserve it, but the new council will have no problem seeing that you do get it. You deserve it. But--"

Here it comes, thought Holland. There is always a but.

"A little good-will gesture would go a long way towards convincing everyone that you are not up to no good."

Holland frowned. "Like what?"

"The Federation is stretched incredibly thin. That's why they are here. They can't keep the peace anymore with all the loses they sustained. Conflicts are flaring up faster than they can be controlled—long forgotten hates and animosities. You are heroes, Holland, for what you did. And I don't just mean in the underground like before. People will listen to you. You are in a better position than anyone if you decide you want to help. Work with us here."

"I will not take orders from you," Holland said firmly, and threw a glare at the military men. "And I will definitely not take orders from them."

"I said work 'with us', not 'for us'," Jan said. "You won't have to take orders from anyone. All you have to do is go out with your ship and you crew and do good and help—basically, what you've been doing all along—only this time with the backing of the U.F. You won't have to run or hide anymore, from anyone. Just help, however you think you can."

He had a point, Holland admitted. That was pretty much what had intended to do but now, presented with the prospect of U.F. Backing and what—if he understood correctly-- was a carte blanc, he was very much tempted to accept the offer. After all, Jurgens was right. Now that Dewey was gone he didn't have a reason to hate the U.F. and its people. There was a lot of suffering left in Dewey's wake, and if they were sincere and really meant that Jan was telling him, then it would he selfish not to accept; he be thinking only of himself and his own reason for doing what he wanted instead of what needed doing for the greater good. And if he could not make a compromise like that, what was the point in having bowed to carry this burden?

Finally, after a long, thoughtful moment he nodded. "Just for the record," he added, "I don't agree with what you are doing. Replacing one big tyrant with a lot of little tyrants is not a change for the better."

"But many people are able to keep each other in check," Jan said slyly. "And it is harder keeping secrets that way, which mean people are much less likely to be underhanded if they know there's a high chance that they will be found out. This isn't a regression to the old way, this is a new way. Or we can just do nothing and let the entire planet go to hell. Personally, I am not ready to let that happen. My children deserve a better world."

Reassured in his own belief, Holland said, "So does mine. But I'll do it my way."

"That's been working for you so far." Jan walked back to his desk, picked up a file from among the pile of papers scattered on the dark writing surface and came back to hand it to Holland. "If I may suggest a place to start."

"I'll look at it," Hollad said noncommittally. "Don't promise anything."

Jan raised his hands in surrender. "Good enough. That's all I'm asking."

There as grumble of disagreement from the military men, and Holland didn't have to be a fortune-teller to figure out that they didn't very much like what had just happened here. He knew most of them would like nothing more than to throw him in the brig and his entire crew along with him until pigs learned to lift. He gave them one more contemptuous glare as Jan turned to Jurgens, who had remained stoically silent through the whole discussion.

"I didn't forget about you, Captain," he said. "I called you because there's the issue of your resigning your commission. And, well, I was wondering if I could not talk you into being reinstated. Several council members—and specially the military—insist that since you resigned under Dewey, then it is no longer valid and therefore there is no need for reinstating you since technically you never felt. Since I would like to stick with proper military decorum, I would like to get this whole nasty affair over with by offering back to you and your crew your ranks, commissions, and pensions."

Jurgens was clearly surprised by this. Holland couldn't tell exactly what he had expected from his summons, but he had an idea that it hadn't been this—a demotion and a slap on the wrist if he got lucky, but not a full reinstatement. It would be as if he'd never left.

Aside from the fact that he had helped save the entire world, of course. It eased Holland's mind that the military wanted someone like Jurgens back, willing to disobey orders to see that the right thing be done. It served to convince him that had not just made a huge screw-up sidling with them. Perhaps there was hope for the U.F. after all.

* * *

II

It was a quick ride back to the airfield. Holland rode in the Terminus TypeR606's rear seat, letting Matthew do the driving. He would much rather drive himself, but as Mathew had pointed out he had already destroyed two LFOs and he wasn't about to let Holland wreck his precious 606 too. Holland took the ribbing in good nature, but there was a painful bit of reality in those words: he no longer had an LFO of his own.

The Gekko was parked at the end of the runway, its worn paint and banged-up frame still graceful to Holland's eyes. There hadn't been time to do much save for the most necessary repairs in the weeks after the battle over the Tian Shan mountain range; the crew had done its best but there was only so much that could be fixed with the limited resources available. Unlike most other aircraft of its size, the Gekko lacked the boxy look that defined military conventions. It was a sleek craft shaped like a swan, with a long neck at the end of which was the bridge, and forward-swept wings holding a triple tracking laser battery under each, and unlike the black of its brethren it was colored in silver and a lime green that its crew called Gekko Green.

Jurgens' ship, the Super Izumo, was also parked nearby. A bond had been forged between the two crews that Holland found hard to believe, the kind of thing that usually happened after going up against huge odds together and somehow surviving.

As the 606 pulled up at the ramp that led into the Gekko's hangar, Holland found his rag-tag crew having what he could only assume was a lifting-board waxing party, joined by a couple of Izumo enthusiasts who looked way out of place in their black uniforms among the shorts, cargoes, and tank-tops of his own crew.

He climbed down from the cockpit, tossing his uniform jacket over the seat. "Okay, guys, we gotta talk," he told his crew, then turned to the Izumo guys, adding, "That means shoo for you lot."

He waited for them to leave before taking a deep breath and starting the speech he had practiced hundreds of times in his head but never mastered.

"Gekkostate was created to protect Eureka—to help humans and coralians find a way to live together. We have done that. You have all done everything to make our mission a success, and risked your own lives. I can't ask any more from any of you. But now, unfortunately there is no reason for Gekkostate to exist." He noticed the faces of the crew, usually cheerful, were sullen. "You can all go your separate ways, you can live your lives as best you think you should live them—you have earned that. But I can't. There are things I feel I should do. It is my responsibility. The world is a better place because of what we did, but there is still suffering and that is something I want to help with. I am responsible for this—only me—and I am not willing to put you at risk anymore for my own sake."

Hilda, a dark-skinned beauty with short black hair and the pilot of the 808, their only other LFO left stood up. "And what makes you think we'll let you go anywhere without us?"

Well, technically he wouldn't be able to go anywhere by himself as the Gekko could not be flown by one man, but Talho, Hap, and Ken had already agreed to come with him when he had brought the subject up.

"Hilda, no. Dewey was my brother. I am the only one that's responsible," Holland said, slightly shaking his head.

"That's no reason at all," Talho said suddenly. "Which is really kinda the worst kind of reason."

Holland gave her a shifty frown—she was supposed to be on his side and back him up on this. She looked radiant sitting on the mat the group had laid out on the concrete runway, her shoulder-length black hair framing a pretty face sporting deceptively delicate features. The form-fitting white coveralls she wore could not hide the bump on her belly where their baby was growing healthily. She returned Holland's frown with a beaming smile.

Yep, she had set him up.

Holland sighed. "Look, I am not going to ask you—"

"Then we volunteer," Gidget said.

"I'm not taking volunteers."

"I don't think you have a choice," Hap said and looked around at the crew; Holland realized he was pretty much standing alone. "In case you haven't noticed, its you against the rest of us. You are just not going anywhere without us, buddy."

"So it's a mutiny, I see," Holland said, his lips twisted into a grin of defeat. "You don't happen to have built a plank while I was gone too, did you?"

Gidget raised a hand giddily. "Does that mean we can have a pirate party?"

Maurice, Maeter, and Link all yelled at the same time, "Arrg!"

"Guys, I'm serious," Holland said. He looked at each of the individuals assembled before him, his crew—no, his family, the only family he had now. And they looked back at him, and he knew that though his word was law on board the Gekko, this was not an issue they would budge on.

"So are we," Talho said, and Holland knew she was speaking for them all. "We haven't been with you so long so you could just decide that whatever it is you are gonna do is not a part of our futures. That is not your decision. Think of it as you having earned the right to have us around. Or mutiny. Either one works for me."

"Besides," Moondoggie said, "if we go we'll have to find jobs. I'm not very employable."

Gidget quickly threw an arm around the young blonde pilot of the Gekko—and compared to her, the only youngest active member of Gekkostate—much to his embarrassment. "That's right. I hadn't even thought about that. Holland, you have to take us. You HAVE to."

Holland sighed accepting defeat. "Fine. Fine, but I don't want anybody complaining when I make you work twice as hard."

"This from the man who commands the ship in his underwear," Talho said, "cheeky."

* * *

III

Dominic was still in the shower.

What was he doing in there anyway? She was the girl, she was the one supposed to take ages in the bathroom—not that she didn't, because, in fact, Dominic had complained about that very same thing. But she had stuff to do. Important stuff! And she did appreciate the fact that he liked being clean, but what could possibly take a man more than maybe a minute to do in the shower?

Anemone sighed impatiently. She was lying in bed, still in her nightgown, among rumpled sheets that had only the night before been as fresh and well-pressed as a uniform. Gulliver, her grossly overweight pet, was propped-up on her stomach, sleeping contently and making little noises. She had been tracing a finger along the top of his chubby head for a while now, absently staring at the ceiling.

Red. What a nice color. Almost as pretty as pink.

Gently, Anemone slipped her arms around Gulliver, scooping him, and sat up. He was heavy, but not as heavy as Dominic said. She held him for a little while then set him back down on the warm sheets, turning to swing her legs off the sides of the bed and searching for her slippers with her feet.

She yawned broadly and stretched her arms as she stood. The ruffled hem of her gown, which had ridden up during the night, slid down to just above her knees where it belonged. Brushing long strands of pink hair away from her eyes, she looked around the tiny apartment she shared with Dominic and couldn't avoid noticing it looked like a hurricane had gone through. Most of it was her fault. Discarded shopping bags lay scattered about, their contents, in some cases fairly expensive, strewn across the floor or tossed carelessly over what little furniture they had managed to collect. A large stack of music disks crowded a corner where Dominic had set up a small player that, despite its size, was loud enough to get the neighbors knocking on their door. And there were used plates and glasses and cutlery everywhere.

It was surprising how fast the stuff of life could pile up when you actually had a life, when you didn't have to live in fear or alone, when you could just be a normal teenage girl doing teenage girl things instead of--

Instead of what Dewey did to her?

Instead of what she did—was doing—to herself?

Anemone sat down in front of her dresser, leaning forward to rest her head on her arms folded atop of the wooden surface, and stared at her reflection on the mirror. How could such a pretty face hide so much pain? She wanted to be happy. When she was with Dominic she could almost forget and reach out, like she had reached for him when they were falling through the air, and always feel better. His smile made her smile. His kindness made her feel warm. His eyes were deep and caring. When she was with him she was the closest to being happy.

But when she was alone—

Normal teenage girl, she told herself. That's a nice fantasy, isn't it?

The eyes that stared back at her from the mirror were not human; they were a clear purple, with diagonal red lines running across the irises. She didn't remember how Dewey's scientists had managed that, only that it hurt a lot. And even though he was dead now, her eyes were the legacy of his handiwork. Like the small receptacle implanted just beneath her left ear used for the injector, they were a reminder carved into her body of who and what she was. And that whatever little nest she had made for herself with Dominic couldn't erase the scars of the past.

She was what Dewey made her. She was what his scientists and their experiments made her. Dominic could try to cheer her up all he wanted, and she loved him all the more for trying, but his words would always go away and she would be left with the truth spelled on her eyes. In her, Dewey's crimes lived on, because he had so completely ruined her.

Her happiness was just a fantasy.

As if conjured by that thought, a dull ache began flaring inside her head. She closed her eyes, and pressed a hand against her temple as if that would help. It wasn't the pounding jackhammer of the withdrawal she'd experienced when laid off the medication designed to send her into a bloodlust to pilot TheEND; it was more like the rumble of a train passing in the distance.

Regardless, her head still hurt and there was only one way she knew to make it go away. "Dominic, hurry up. I need to use the bathroom!"

* * *

IV

As the Gekko soared through the air leaving a trail of shimmering emerald trapar behind it, Holland finally got a chance to retreat to his quarters. His crew was good enough that they didn't require him on-station all the time, but he liked hanging out in the bridge. However, being in command made his job the most stressful, and the least fun. The crew had their heading and their directions, so he was finally free to take a break and headed for his quarters. He had been lying on the bed for a few minutes, for the second time leafing through the file Jan had given him, when there was a knock at the door. He grunted an inquiry.

"It's me," said Talho's voice. "You know, the mother of your child."

"Come one in. The more the merrier. Apparently"

The door slid open to reveal the Gekko's second in command. She walked over to him, her hips swinging in that inimitable way, causing Holland to sit up, crossing his legs and paying attention.

Sitting on the bed next to him, she said, "You aren't mad are you?"

"About what?"

Talho looked at him sheepishly. "I know we talked about this before, but it didn't seem fair. For all your talk of responsibility, trying to get rid of your crew—the crew that has put their lives at risk so many times for you—was a very irresponsible thing to do."

Holland's mouth turned into a slopped line. "I'm still new at the whole responsibility thing. If you didn't think it was such a good idea, why didn't you say anything before?"

"Because you are more stubborn than I am," Talho said. Absently, she rested a hand on her belly. "I knew I couldn't convince you by myself."

"You are a tricky one, aren't you?"

"The best. Don't you know that by now?" She laughed.

"Oh, I know." He moved closer to her and placed his hand over hers. He always did this unless she invited him to touch her. He didn't know why, but he thought it had something to do with wanting their child to feel both of its parents together. "So how's …"

"Fine," Talho said, having heard the question hundreds of times. "Mischa is on top of things. She's driving me crazy with this diet, though. I tried to sneak in a drink the other night, but it's like she's got some kind of radar, or FLIR, or trapar density detector, or something. I wonder why she never gave Eureka so much fuss."

"It could be worse. It could be Gidget looking after you."

Talho made a face. "Okay, first of all, I can look after myself, thank you very much. And second, how would that be worse, exactly?"

"Well, I'm sure pizza and ungodly amounts of soda isn't very healthy."

"But it tastes so much better than that soy crap Mischa has me on."

Holland smiled at her. "Next time you try to sneak something by her, let me know. We can do it together. I'll run a decoy. She won't know what hit her."

"She'll probably catch us, and then she'll put you on a diet."

Holland shrugged. "No way. I'm not the one getting fatter by the day."

Talho looked at him as though he had insulted her honor, which he kinda just had. She twisted her lips into a tiny pout, then lunged at him playfully. In the blink of an eye she was laying on top of him, holding him down. She looked down at him, and smiled a charmingly boyish grin at her. She loved that expression, he knew.

"So this mission," she said after a while, "it isn't just responsibility, is it?"

"Partly, yes, but also--" His eyes left hers and focused on her swollen belly. "—I wouldn't be much of a man if I didn't try to leave a better world for my children."

Talho took his hand, knotting both their fingers together. "You already have. You, and Renton, and Eureka. You are a hero."

Holland didn't find that very comforting. Dewey had been a hero to a lot of people too, and a lot of good it did them. Granted, they could not have known—people only believed in heroes out of great need and desperation. That was why he didn't like being referred to as one—except perhaps by the people who fully understood what being a hero was all about, and for whom it was more than a flitting title to give false hope; people who had enjoyed with him and suffered with him, whether in the sunshine or through the scudding drifts of trapar.

"Renton and Eureka are the heroes. I was just along for the ride."

There was another knock at the door.

Holland groaned. "Can't I get some peace?"

"Sorry to bother you, Leader, but I've got a question," came Stoner's voice.

"It's open," Talho said.

Stoner stepped in. He was the Gekko's photographer, and editor and publisher of Gekkostate's magazine, Ray-Out. As usual, there was camera slung over his shoulder. He wore cargo shorts and a hooded pullover. He had his facial hair trimmed down to two triangles on either side of his mouth and a small goatee. Holland himself hated shaving, so he would often sport three or four-day stubble, but Stoner, like most artists was very interested in his personal appearance.

"This question better be important," Holland told Stoner, joking.

Stoner raised an eyebrow at him, then at Talho, who was still straddling his waist. "I'm not interrupting something, right?"

Talho smiled prettily. "Nope."

"Well." Stoner pulled out an envelope from underneath his hoodie. "You know I've been working on the next issue of Ray-Out and I thought you might want to give your input. I don't have any pictures of the Nirvash in its final form, so I thought I could get away with an older "stock" image, but they all seem rather plain by comparison. Then I thought maybe a picture of Renton and Eureka, but after Pacific State—well, come on, nothing I've got comes close to that for pure Zen. A photographer can live a hundred years and not take another picture like that." He tossed the envelope onto the bed. "So I narrowed it down to these, but I can't make up my mind."

Holland reached for the envelope, but Talho beat him to it. She opened, took a quick look at the content and turned an up-turned eyebrow at Stoner.

"What?" Holland asked.

She withdrew on of the photographs from inside the envelope and held it up for him to see. It was them, years ago. She wore a helmet and goggles, her hair tied up in a long ponytail that fluttered in the wind, Hollands arms wrapped around her. Their faces were younger, but Holland realized just how little they had changed from those more carefree days. "You want to write about us again?" he said.

"Yes. The Second Summer of Love is a fascinating subject, but people seem to want to know more about you two. Woz set up a server for fanmail and you'd be surprised how much mail comes in for you. Questions, answers, love letters, pictures of girls wearing—well, very al natural--everything. People seem to really like you. I mean, Renton and Eureka are like superstars, but you two are much more approachable. As far people are concerned you are one of them."

Holland sighed. "Yeah, I supposed nothing bad could come of it. Just one condition, though. Don't tell them I used to kick Renton around."

Stoner considered that and, taking back his pictures from Talho's outstretched arm, said, "Violence sells."

* * *

V

Ravensbruck was a nice enough place but it had not been Dominic's first choice. It was a fairly populous city, largely untouched by the events preceding the Second Summer of Love, which meant that living here afforded them a measure of normalcy he thought was good for them. Originally, he had wanted to go to Bellforest since Axel Thurston had told him he would be welcome, and he really wanted to catch up with the old man and thank him, and tell him what a hero his grandson Renton had become. It was a peaceful and quiet place to settle where they wouldn't be bothered. However, Anemone would have none of it. For starters, Bellforest was boring, she'd said. And it had no good shops, no interesting people and, generally, nothing to do whatsoever.

And, while she held no particular resentment towards the Thurstons, spending time with an old man wasn't something she was looking forward to, either.

Dominic was not going to argue the point. There would be time for Bellforest later, and he was sure that one day Anemone would meet Axel. Until then, what she wanted he was going to give her. She deserved no less after all that happened, and after his own complicity in the whole thing.

Anemone seemed to either don't care or have already forgiven him, but he had not forgiven himself. It didn't change what he had done. Dewey had never really confided in him, that was true, and for most people it would be an excuse. He had just been a soldier following orders, gathering intelligence. He had just failed to see the man for what he was.

Warsaw had been an eye opener, but it shouldn't have had to come to that—he should have done something sooner. All that time he thought he was doing the right thing he was really just being used, and worse, he was hurting Anemone.

"Dominic!"

Anemone's sharp voice brought Dominic out of his reverie. His gray-blue eyes glanced at her sheepishly across the table. "Sorry."

They were sitting at one of the open-air cafes situated along a busy cobblestone street lined with shops and restaurants. Dominic didn't have too much of an appetite for sweets at the moment, but Anemone seemed intent on trying everything, and whatever she didn't eat Gulliver was keen to pounce on. There were quite a few people on the tables around them; obviously this was a popular place. Probably why Anemone had wanted to come here.

"I said, are you gonna eat that or what?" Anemone repeated, pointing with her spoon at the chocolate sundae in front of Dominic, which he had hardly touched. "What's the matter with you? You've been spacing out a lot lately."

"Just thinking." He passed the dessert to her, and she quickly dug her spoon into it and lifted a large chunk into her mouth. "Lots of things happened in such a short time that I really didn't have much of a chance to get my head around all of it. Did you?"

Anemone shrugged her shoulders, turning the spoon upside-down to scrape the last bit of chocolate syrup off of it, then taking another spoonful.

To anyone who didn't know her she would appear as nothing more than an uninterested teenager being fickle, clad in a white sundress with red accents along the shoulders and red open-heeled shoes. She had her hair done in the same style as always, but she had let it grow longer and didn't use clasps to hold it back anymore. Dominic couldn't help but smile. "You know, Anemone, it's really a mystery how you can eat all this stuff and not gain a pound."

"Are you saying--" she leaned an elbow on the table, fixing him with a beady eye "--you rather I did or something?"

Dominic blushed. "No, of course not. I love you just the way you are."

"Then stop it with the looking like you want to be somewhere else."

Dominic shook his head. "I'm sorry, okay? I'll make it up to you."

"You'll let me bite?"

Dominic blushed a fierce red. "No. I'll buy you something nice."

Anemone seemed to consider his answer for a few moments before deciding it was adequate and returning to her sundae. "Really, if there's anything that's really bothering you, why don't you say something? I'm not stupid, you know, you can talk to me about stuff."

"Yes, I know," Dominic said, feeling embarrassed that he would make her think that. "That's not what I think at all."

She made a face. "That's your problem. You think too much."

"Is it … really a problem?"

"It is when you are so hung up on figuring stuff out that you miss what's going on now." Anemone's voice had a slight tone of reproach, but her features were open, sincere. "Military types are all about the past, right? But you get so concerned about it that you stumble all over yourselves in the present. Instead of always looking over your shoulders, why don't you look at where you are walking?"

Dominic thought about that and decided she was right. "That's good advice."

Anemone smiled happily, pushing the now nearly-empty sundae cup in front of Gulliver.

She is really a remarkable girl, Dominic thought. He didn't remember the exact moment when we knew he had fallen in love with her; it was such a gradual thing. His assignment had been to look after her, which was easier said than done. For most of the time he had known her she had been prone to dramatic mood changes, some times violently so, and the drugs she had been injected with didn't help matters much. She had bit him on three different occasions, once rather painfully on the neck as he tried to restrain her, and had punched and kicked him more times than he cared to recall. But despite all that he had never blamed her.

Dominic sat back on his chair, watching the pink-haired girl. How odd that there had been a time when he'd thought he'd never see her again, when he wasn't even sure that his feelings were not unrequited. He had always tried to be kind to her, going above and beyond his duty, but there had never been any certainly—not the slightest hint, really—that she felt the same way. He'd admitted that to Holland and the Gekkostate. And they had compared to Renton, which was really the highest compliment they could pay him.

He looked away, focusing on the crowd walking by.

But even if Anemone hadn't felt anything for him, he would have still gone to save her. And he would have still--

Suddenly, there was a loud noise further down the street, like a boom echoing through the small canyon of old buildings. At once, Dominic and Anemone and everyone in the cafe turned their heads, just in time to notice a thick cloud of dust billowing around a corner. The people on the street stopped, though some, those closest to the cloud, began moving away clearly in fright. The first thing that came to Dominic's mind was that there had been some kind of accident.

Anemone sprang from her chair. "Let's go!"

"What?" Dominic sputtered.

"Somebody might be hurt!" Anemone said, and without any further explanation took off running, rounding the wrought-iron fence that separated the cafe from the street beyond.

Dominic quickly gathered Guilliver's heavy form with an arm, turning to tell nearest stunned waiter that he'd be back to take care of the bill, and, even with the creature's weight added to his own managed to vault altogether over the fence. He placed Gulliver in his motorcycle's side-car and took off after Anemone. As he ran, a series of hammering sounds reached his ears, and the crowded street turned to chaos. His heart pounding in his chest, two words came to mind: gunfire! Anemone!

People were screaming now, the sort of universal wail that fear always produced, and rushing to get away. He came around the corner at a full sprint, not really noticing anything else around him.

Anemone was standing on the sidewalk, her attention fixed on a locale a few yards further down the street that had had its front windows shattered open, and from which a thick column of smoke was rising.

"Anemone!"

Anemone turned at the sound of her name, and it was then that Dominic saw a man emerging from the building's windows. And he was carrying an assault rifle.

Without any conscious thought, Dominic grabbed Anemone's wrist, spinning her around, and dragging her into her nearest bit of cover her could find, a large black mailbox. It wasn't much, but crouching down next to it would at least provide some protection from the barrage he was sure was coming, and though he was painfully aware that the thin material would likely not even slow down rifle rounds. He put his arms protectively around Anemone.

There was no fire in their direction.

Dominic, with his back now pressed against the mailbox, inched along its surface until he could peek around the edge. The soldier—militant—criminal—or whatever—had turned around, examining the interior of the building which was darkened by smoke. He caught sight of the sign above the doorway.

"It's a bank," he whispered to Anemone.

"A bank robbery!" Anemone said, a little too loudly. She pushed away from him so that she could also look around the mailbox. "That's kinda cool."

Dominic could not believe she just said that. "It isn't. These guys look like they are serious. We don't want to be stuck in the crossfire when the local law enforcement gets here." He put his hands on her shoulders and, gently but firmly, moved her back behind cover. "Be quiet, please."

Anemone gave him a pout but offered no further protest. Dominic looked at the scene again, carefully scanning their surroundings looking for a way out. There was an old military truck parked across the bank, sort generally used as a troop carrier, which led him to believe there were more than enough criminals still inside. The one guy keeping watch outside—for Dominic was sure that was his job—didn't seem too concerned. He was slim, wearing a black mask over the lower part of his face and camo trousers; he was holding his weapon loosely, comfortably. Not a good sign. There wasn't any space between the buildings as they were so close to each other their facades made for what was basically once solid wall, meaning that he would have to take Anemone back the way they had come.

They could do it. All they would have to do was--

"Gulliver!"

Dominic spun around just as Anemone jumped onto her feet.

"Ane--" he threw out his hand to catch her but she was already gone. He saw Gulliver running towards them, as fast as his short chubby legs would carry him and made his decision, right on that split second of fear, to go after Anemone.

Anemone reached Gulliver in full stride, scooping him up almost as if he didn't weight more than thin air and turned on a dime, clearly intending to rush back to Dominic. And as she did this, her right foot slipped on the cobblestones. She landed on her side a groan; Gulliver squealed.

Dominic was besides her a second later, his heart threatening to burst through his chest. He took a hold of them both and, fueled by adrenaline, managed to haul them back up. It all happened very quickly, but it wasn't quick enough.

"Halt!"

Dominic's heart stopped. He turned immediately, raising only one hand as the other was still firmly wrapped around Anemone's waist; whether because she didn't fully understand what was happening, she didn't look half as scared as he thought she ought to. "Don't shoot!" he called, quickly getting over the shock of having an assault rifle aimed directly and him and the girl he loved. "We are civilians!"

"Come forward!" the criminal ordered.

Dominic looked down at Anemone. Her gaze dropped. "I'm sorry, Dominic," she said.

"Don't worry," he told her soothingly, "I'll get us out of this."

He wished he could believe his own words.

Trying to put as much of himself between Anemone at the gun pointed at them, Dominic moved them closer, very slowly—where the hell was law enforcement?--When he was just a few paces away, the armed robber lowered his gun. For a moment, Dominic thought he could overpower him, but with Anemone so close he didn't want to risk anything that might get her hurt. He had to play it cool; these guys were here for the bank, after all, not bystanders.

"Take it easy, mister, there's no need for bloodshed," the man said, and Dominic was taken aback by how young he sounded.

"My name is Dominic Sorel, who are you?" he asked.

"I don't have to answer that."

Those words triggered a powerful memory for Dominic, of the first time he'd met Renton and the boy had started asking him all kinds of questions about Anemone and TheEND. "I told that to a friend once," he said.

"I am not your friend."

"At the time, neither was he." Dominic said. But the man was not looking at him anymore: he had his bright blue eyes fixed on Anemone, and his brow, the only other part of his face visible, was furrowed. Dominic tightened his grip on her. Did he know who they were? Could he use that to their advantage? He hadn't recognized Dominic's name so the most likely answers was a negative.

Maybe it was even worse than that.

After Jurgens had sent them on their way at Dominic's own request, he had tried keeping up with current events. He knew from the media that while Gekkostate was generally regarded as full-blown heroes, there was a lot of anger for those who aided Dewey in any away. Dominic himself had stayed in the background, as was his job, but Dewey had unveiled Anemone to the world as his Goddess of War, and a seemingly willful participant in his plans. Along with the Ageha Squad, she was at the top of the list for some of the people who thought accountability, in one form or another, should not die with Dewey. And Anemone wouldn't exactly be hard to pick out from among a crowd. If they just so happened to be standing in front of one of those people, they were in very serious trouble.

"Do I know you?" the man said uncertainly to Anemone.

She barred her teeth angrily. "I make a point not to hang out with losers."

"Brave words for someone so young," came a new voice.

Both Dominic and Anemone turned as a second man stepped out of the back. He was of average height, but unlike the other one wore no mask so his face was plainly visible. He was older than Dominic but still fairly young, his eyes were a clear blue, and his hair was curly and blond. On his head sat a red beret, slightly tilted to the side. He wore full combat gear, fatigues and body armor, and was unarmed except for a handgun holstered on his belt. Behind him came another man, dark skinned and huge. Some kind of bodyguard was Dominic's first guess, with a squad machine gun.

The first man, the one who had aimed his assault rifle at them, saluted. "Sir, got some looky-loos here."

The blond man sighed, as if he regretted being given such information. "I guess it was to be expected," he turned to his bodyguard. "Art, bring what we have."

The dark-skinned man nodded and disappeared into the bank.

"Sir," Dominic started, fixing the newcomer, who was obviously in charge, with his eyes. His military experience had taught him that authority figure tended to have rather large egos, which could be taken advantage of. "We are innocent civilians. We've got nothing to do with this, and just so happened to be walking by."

"Who are they?" the leader asked the first man, ignoring Dominic.

"This guy said his name was Dominic. Don't know about the girl, she seems familiar though."

The leader turned his attention now more fully to Anemone, but she was looking up at Dominic and their eyes didn't meet. Dominic tucked her as close to his aside as he could. He was afraid, but not for his own safety. Anemone was the most important thing in his life, he would not let her go without a mighty fight and if it came to that, he was prepared to defend her to his last breath. He realized then that she was clinging on to his shirt with a hand, and placed his own on top of hers and squeezed hard, and she squeezed back. Gulliver, safe in Anemone's embrace, tried holding on to him too.

"She's just another pretty girl," the leader told his subordinate. "Don't concern yourself with it."

The bodyguard came back out, leading a pack of a dozen civilians and nearly half-a-dozen armed militias. The civilians all carried bags of currency. Dominic felt his heart sank as they were herded into the nearby truck.

"You are coming with us too," the leader said.

Dominic snarled as he was poked in the back by the man with the rifle and had no choice but to comply. He gave Anemone a look of apology; he wouldn't be getting them out of it after all for the time being.

As they walked past the leader, however, he reached out and took Anemone by the arm. Before Dominic could do anything, she looked up, her face surprised and angry, and her uniquely beautiful eyes met the leader's.

Dominic lunged, grabbing the man's collar, knowing full well that they were as good as dead. He was about to scream for Anemone to run when something hard slammed into the back of his knee. He turned, or tried to, as he fell and threw out his elbow hoping to strike a lucky blow. He saw Anemone struggling to restrain the man with the rifle as he lifted the butt of his weapon and—

—brought it down hard on Dominic's temple.

And before darkness completely obliterated his world, he heard Anemone desperately screaming his name, and he wished he had gotten one last chance to tell her how much he loved her.

* * *

VI

Holland fixed up his usual yellow ascot around his neck and walked onto observation platform above the Gekko's bridge. Talho sat bellow him in the captain's chair, with Ken, Moondoggie, Hap, Gidget, and Woz sitting around her in a star-shape layout where each of them had a station located at the point. As warships went, it was a rather spacious set-up, with large windows and canopy providing an astonishing view of the sky around them.

"We are authorized," Gidget called from her station. "Ravensbruck Air Traffic Control is very happy to see us."

"Doggie, bring us into the landing pattern," Talho ordered.

Moondoggie nodded promptly, moving his control stick slightly. The Gekko's nose dipped, and entered into a gentle turn, slowly spiraling towards the large blue Tower in the distance. Like most major cities, Ravensbruck was primarily built around the shimmering metal Tower that rose up thousands of feet into the air and which located at its center. It was here that the airports, as well as governmental offices, were located. The sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows over the ground bellow, tinting everything in an orange and black palette. It really was beautiful.

"Gidget, what's our ETA?" Talho asked.

The dark-skinned teenager replied almost immediately. "Twenty minutes—oh, wait. Um, looks like we've been bumped up." She looked up at Talho surprised. "ETA is now."

Holland gripped the nearby safety rails as the Gekko's descend angle increased. With a whine of the straining engines, Moondoggie brought the graceful craft into the final landing stage. The fuselage shuddered as the landing gear was lowered and began catching the air, breaking their aerodynamic profile. A quick glance at the forward canopy confirmed to Holland that they were properly lined-up with the streaks of light that bordered the runway.

The engines were shut off so they were gliding in. As a general rule Gekkostate did all it could to keep from polluting and that meant riding the trapar waves, which also meant that they had to be really good at reading them to take full advantage of the lift they provided. It also meant there was no room for error during landing, as their glide slope would determine the speed at which they would hit the runway and if it was too steed they would hit with crushing force, destroying their landing gear and smashing up the Gekko; if it was too shallow, they would overshoot their target and run out of space before decelerating. Both scenarios would be near disastrous. Thankfully, Holland had full confidence in his crew and so he didn't worry. Compared to what they had been through this was cake, even with a damaged ship.

"Vectoring in for final run," Moondoggie said. "It's kinda shaky, but we'll make it."

"No problem with structural integrity. We are good for landing," Hap verified. "Everyone might want to hold on to something though."

Holland took that little of information with a growl, wishing he'd had a chance to go back to Tresor for repairs already. But the engineers there currently had their hands full fixing up certain elements of the U.F. fleet and it would be weeks before they could look at the Gekko. And Holland would much rather be up and about than sitting in a hanger somewhere waiting to let those wrench-heads have their way with his ship. Repairs would have to wait.

The Gekko touched down with a jolt and a roar. Almost as soon as it hit the runway, the brakes were engaged. Holland held on tightly. They came to stop just before the wide yellow stripes that signaled the end of the runway, with about three hundred yards to spare, and quick taxied to their designated elevator, designated by a glowing white square painted on the tarmac.

"Good job everyone," Talho said. "Doggie, secure us for parking. Ken, lock down weapons."

Holland descended the stairs to the bridge floor. "Gidget, ask Traffic Control about supplies. We are not here to impose, so only if they can spare."

Gidget nodded and dedicated herself to chatting up whoever was on the other side of her headset. Holland came to stand next to Talho. The ride down the elevator was short and uneventful, but as they entered the massive hangar, he noticed there a rather large crowd gather beneath them, right in front of where the elevator platform was meant to settle.

Hap was smiling broadly. "You guys should hear this." He pressed a button on his console.

And, much to the amazement of the entire crew, the sound of cheering flooded the bridge. Holland shook his head in amused disbelieve.

"I guess somebody must have let it slip that we were coming," Talho said.

Holland smiled sardonically. "Yeah, lets see how much they really like us once they get to know us."

By the time the elevator had come to a stop on the hangar deck, Holland had gathered the crew on the Gekko's own hangar, surrounded by their remaining LFOs, and spare parts for them and Nirvash. He wasn't about to tell them to behave. They hadn't made it this far by doing that. In fact, he'd told Matthew to bring out his boombox and his collection of the loudest music he had. These people were here to see Gekkostate, after all, and Holland didn't intend to let them go home disappointed. The girls, mainly--Gidget and Hilda, but also Talho--seemed to have found a renewed interest in makeup and as Holland led them all down the exit ramp generally used for deploying the LFOs, he noticed they were still attempting to fix themselves up for the adoring crowd.

As soon as they came into view, the crowd exploded in a huge collective cheer. There was a cordon of security personnel holding back the tide of people trying to push their way forward, holding signs and screaming adoringly. Holland, Talho by his side, waved—so did the rest of the crew. Matthew's blaring music was almost completely drawn out.

He noticed that the Gekko was far from the only ship in the hangar, and that was to be expected, but seeing military-grade KLFs unsettled him. And they weren't the standard Mon-Soono they had never had a problem with; they were bulkier, more heavily armored.

A security officer wearing a black uniform approached them and eagerly shook Holland's hand. "Captain Novak," he had to scream to be heard over the crowd. "Welcome to Ravensbruck. Sorry about the commotion, but once people found out Gekkostate was coming …"

"Call me Holland. Don't worry about it," Holland told them man. "I've had worse receptions than this."

The officer seemed to need a moment to consider what to say next. It wasn't nervousness, just uncertainty. "I've been told that the Administrator has asked to see you right away. Is that okay with you?"

Holland exchanged a look with Talho. There would be no time for sightseeing, apparently. He hadn't really expected this to be a vacation, but he had hoped for an opportunity to look around and meet some of the people and see who needed help with what. It was all rather new to, and he hadn't really thought it through—but then again that wasn't anything new. This might just prove an even better starting point, provided he could secure the cooperation of the local authority.

He nodded his accent to the security officer, then gestured for Talho and Hap to come with him as he followed down a corridor made up by security guys holding onto each other's belts to keep the crowd at bay. The others were left to their own devices. He trusted that they would not cause too much of a mess.

Although he had the feeling that those who had come to greet them would not care at all if they did.

With his arm around Talho's waist, Holland stepped through a side doorway and unto a narrow hall. They were brought to another elevator. As the officer pressed a button and they started to descend further into the tower, he turned to them. "We sure are glad you guys are here."

"We heard you've been having trouble," Holland told him.

"I am afraid so. The U.F. used to be able to keep the peace around here, but with them called back, things have been going to hell lately. We've been forced to arm ourselves. It wasn't cheap."

Holland this was a good a time as any to ask. "So I saw. Were did you get those KLFs?"

"Black market. Lots of stuff going around there. Unfortunately, they don't just sell their equipment to those intending to use it for lawful purposes only. You got the money, they sell you anything. But now that you are here—well, if half the stuff we've heard is even true--"

"I'm sure there's some wild exaggeration in whatever you've hear, but that tends to happen," Talho said.

"So the Colonel wanting to destroy the world—"

Hearing his brother referred to by his rank, a sign of respect anywhere, made Holland grind his teeth. "That's mostly true. Actually, it's all true."

The elevator came to a stop, and they were led down another hall, and into a large conference room lined with large tactical display monitors that glowed in its darkened confines; the electronic hum of machinery filled the air with an unnatural yet pleasant symphony. A large bald man stood up and approached them. "Holland Novak," he extended a hand, "I am happy to meet you at last. I am Administrator Odilo. I run this city."

Holland shook his hand, but had a distinct sense of uneasiness about the man. "We understand you are in need of help."

"Well, yes. Anyone can see that." Odilo said sharply. "We've been having problems with certain subversive elements that seem intent on disturbing the peace. Normally, the U.F. would take care of such ravel but after the Colonel saw it fit to take our local contingent away, we were in a rather precarious position. Enforcement is a matter of strength, and since we no longer have the miliraty by our sides, it seems like some people don't expect the law to apply anymore. Things have only gotten more violent lately. Now that you have arrived, however, our firepower will be greatly increased. You will be fairly compensated, of course. That is how you do things, right?"

Holland a felt his stomach tighten. "Hold on. We are not mercenaries," he said quickly. "We came with the intention to prevent bloodshed, not to fight for you against your enemies."

Odilo frowned. "Oh, but the time for mediation is long past. We can not sit idly while our citizens are attacked by this violent rabble. Just this afternoon we have a large-scale raid by local rebels on a crowded street. Many wounded. Several innocent people were taken hostages," he said. "Proper action must be taken."

"There has been too much death lately," Holland said, thought he had the impression that these people had already made up his mind. "There has to be away to find a peaceful solution."

"I don't believe this!" Odilo roared, visibly angered. "Gekkostate—the ones who stood up to the might of the Federation military and Dewey Novak—refuse to take action when action is needed most. What is this, some kind of joke? And you claim that you are here to help?"

Talho stepped in, her face set. "It seems to me you don't need any help—you've already made up your mind about what you want to do. We aren't here to do your dirty work."

"Nonsense!" he bellowed. "You are Gekkostate, you do this all the time!"

Talho looked like she wanted to punch this prick, and Holland had a mind to agree. That would not help them any, and so he put a restraining hand on her shoulder. She glared at him. Hap, obviously sensing the tension and hostility being thrown across the room, came between the two groups.

"Listen," he said, "We didn't come here to add to the problem." He turned to Holland, raising an eyebrow shiftily. "Maybe we should think about this."

Holland got it—they didn't have to agree to anything, they just needed an out for the time being. Ordinarily, he wouldn't have caved in like this, but there really didn't seem much good in continuing this discussion further. "We'll think about it," he said, not really intending to. He wasn't about to throw his crew into this. This place had merely been a suggestion, and if they didn't want the Gekko's help, he had no problem walking away.

As they turned to leave, Odilo called to them. "Do you know a Lieutenant Dominic Sorel?"

Holland, Talho, and Hap stopped on their tracks. Of course they knew him, but what did that have to do with—

"He's one of the hostages," the Administrator answered the unvoiced question. "Him and that thing he's infatuated with. They have been living here for a few weeks now."

Hearing Anemone referred to as 'that thing' made Holland wish he hadn't restrained Talho moments ago. Actually, it made him want to gut this guy himself and be done with it.

While Dominic had defected to Gekkostate and Anemone had joined him later on, he had only met them briefly, but though they caused Nirvash and the Gekko considerable grief he had felt a powerful connection to them. Dominic had been annoyingly reluctant to explain much at first, but once they had opened up to Holland, he couldn't help the sense that, even when they had been committed to hunt down Gekkostate, there had been an element of reluctance on the part of Anemone and TheEND. They were manipulated, like a lot of other people had, but it was really much worse than that. Anemone had been treated like a machine, a soulless thing whose only worth was its ability to cause pain and suffering.

Even Eureka, who had been placed in the front lines repeatedly, had always done so willingly, but Anemone had been forced from the start—forced to become a dehumanized weapon, deprived of human contact and kindness, and meant to exist so long as she served Dewey's purpose. When Dominic had told them about the drugs specifically created to turn her into a remorseless killing machine and the terrible way in which they affected her body and mind, and the constant side effects Holland had genuinely felt sorry for her. Nobody should be made to live like that.

And that she was made so much like Eureka—it was another one of his brother's sins.

"How do you know that?" Talho said. Her pale brown eyes were poisonous. "How do you know about them?"

"I know because I would not let them roam this city without supervision, as if they were regular people. They don't know they were being followed, of course. That would defeat the purpose. We all the trouble we've had it was a completely sensible precaution."

"Talho, lets go," Holland, said, all pretense of diplomacy now forgotten, and a new suddenly chilling possibility filling him with a kind of fear he hadn't felt in a long time.

He had made it perfectly clear to Dominic that he was responsible for them now—even if they didn't want him to be. Dewey was dead and so would never be brought to account though he certainly should. Holland would take it upon himself to make things right for them; to somehow make up for the life that Dewey had destroyed to turn a wounded and helpless little girl into the girl that was Anemone. He owed it to them. They had protested, but he had been adamant. It was no different than the oath he'd sworn to protect Eureka.

"I can't make you do anything," Odilo said surreptitiously, seemingly picking up on Holland's unsettled concern, "but you know as well as I do what is likely to happen if these rebels find out just who, exactly, they happen to have taken hostage. I'd give them maybe five minutes if they decide they want to have some fun with the 'girl' before killing her. The Lieutenant would more than likely be executed on the spot. An operation has been planed at first light tomorrow morning. You can choose to do as you wish. However, I feel the need to inform you your cooperation would greatly improve their chances of survival. Such as they are."

That wasn't much of a choice at all. It had been a while since Holland had felt so pissed with anyone.

What the hell had Dominic been thinking, getting taken hostage? He'd been told to keep a low profile. He knew people blamed Anemone for Dewey's murderous actions—that in the public mind she was as responsible for all the death and misery he had inflicted on the planet. He knew that given a chance they would want to hurt her, and, like an idiot, he had refused to stay with Gekkostate or the Izumo for their own protection. An idiot in love, like Holland himself, but still an idiot.

And now, somehow, he had to save them.

* * *

VII

Pain. Even as darkness dissolved into visible shapes, the first sensation that came back was pain, as if someone where trying to drive a nail into the side of his head. He was lying still on his back but somehow his whole body felt like it was moving, vibrating.

"Dominic!"

Pink hair.

It was then that he realized he had opened his eyes, and Anemone was leaning over him, her face sick with worry. She hit him on the arm then returned to cradling his head. "You idiot! Why do you always have to go and get yourself hurt?"

Dominic blinked insistently, clearing up his vision so he was able to take in surrounding. He was really moving—they were on the truck. The civilians he'd seen earlier were sitting on the bench across from them; the militias were standing, holding the railings that ran the length of the truck's top for support. Gulliver was curled up next to him, apparently standing guard.

He returned his attention to Anemone. "What happened?"

"You got hit in the head," she said, giving him an inquisitive frown. "Don't you remember? Did you loose your memory or something?"

Dominic almost laughed.

"I remember." He raised his hand, ignoring the pain for now, and gently stroked he side of her face. He then moved it slowly until he was holding a bare shoulder and pulled her down to whisper in her ear. "Listen, Anemone, keep your head down," he told her, "don't look at them in the eyes."

"I kinda figured that one out," Anemone said, resting her head against his chest. "Either they don't know who we are, or they know but aren't looking to hurt us. We can't take the chance, right?"

"Right."

A new face appeared above him, young with blue eyes and curly hair, and an expression of apology. "I'm sorry," he said. "My men are not trained for this sort of work. But desperate times call for desperate measures."

Anemone started and straightened up, but kept her gaze on Dominic. Neither said a word. Gulliver growled as threateningly as a ball covered in white fur standing on end could. The leader kneeled down in front of them, stretching out his hand to offer something to Anemone. She looked at them item suspiciously, as if it would hurt her. "Ice pack," the leader said, pointing at Dominic, "for his head."

Anemone took it and promptly pressed it against the side of Dominic's aching temple, brushing a rather thick lock of his dark hair out of the way. At first, the cold made it hurt worse, but slowly the pain ebbed away.

"My name is Simon," he said.

Dominic nodded, committing the name to memory. "Where are we going?" he managed, thinking it wouldn't hurt to get know more about their current situation.

Simon stood up, taking a hold of the overhead railing. "For me, safety. For you, well, don't worry, you'll be safe too, at least for now. I'm a freedom fighter not a murderer."

It occurred to Dominic that, at one point or another, just about every murderer in history must have claimed to be a freedom fighter. Of course, Anemone didn't need to hear that, but judging from her glum expression he had the distinct feeling that she probably knew.

* * *

VIII

"Dammit!" Holland kicked the first thing he could find--a large bucket, which clattered loudly as it skidded across the floor and smashed into the side of the heavily-armed 808. Hilda promptly threw a look of reproach his way, but didn't say anything. The entire crew had gathered on the hangar to discuss what to do next, and for the last few minutes, after Holland and the others had finished filling everybody in, there had been a grim, unbroken silence. The enthusiasm at their euphoric reception now just another distant memory.

Hap, who was sitting cross-legged on the deck, said, "Well, we aren't gonna solve anything like this."

"Holland, you don't really think they would hurt them, do you?" Gidget said. "I mean, once Dominic explained everything to us, we wouldn't hurt them and we had more cause than most people. They threatened the Nirvash before, but you wouldn't hurt them, right?"

Wouldn't he? Holland thought. The answer was rather hard to swallow. If he had met Anemone before anyone had had a chance to explain, and if he had known that she was the pilot of TheEND, he would have hurt her. He had tried twice—rather, twice he had been in a position to fight her. The first time before he even knew anything about her and simply assumed that it was another ace inside the black LFO, and the second after he'd found out about the way Dominic felt about her, but weight against the importance of what Renton and Eureka had to do he'd been more than willing to place himself in her way.

Until Dominic risked his own life to get her to stand down.

Yes, he decided. He would have hurt Anemone. And that knowledge made this entire situation all the more troubling. Gidget wouldn't understand if he told her; she was much too young and much too naïve.

"We need to get them out of there," Holland said. "This Odilo guy didn't sound like he was to keen on caring for their well-being so I don't like their chances if they are caught in some misguided assault. The local security force seems just as likely to want to kill them as the rebels."

"So then what?" Hilda said.

"We use the dawn assault as a diversion, then go in with the 606 and 808. We get Dominic and Anemone out of there and pull back. We do it fast and hard. Hopefully, there should be enough confusion that we can do it before anyone knows we're there."

There were looks exchanged all around. Then, Ken, their mustachioed weapons maestro said, "What about the other hostages?"

"I'm not as concerned about them as I am about our love birds," Holland said. "Our intervention will sway the battled, probably."

"That's not the point," Ken objected. "As long as there's weapon fire being thrown around people are bound to get hurt, maybe even killed."

Holland took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was all he could do to keep from signing. He didn't want to say it, but sometimes being the Leader meant stating the painfully obvious. "We can't protect everyone."

He hadn't really wanted things to turn out like this, and he wanted to say it, but from the looks of resignation being traded around he understood that he didn't have to.

"The Gekko won't be much help in ground support," that from Hap. "We'll stay overhead and help coordinate the LFOs."

Holland nodded at him. "Woz, try to get us some intel. I don't care if you have to hack the tower's computer system. I want tactical dispositions, and whatever you can on these rebels. Tactics, weaponry, profiles, anything. And the locals too."

Woz nodded, his long dreadlocks bobbing up and down. "Do you want me to coordinate with the locals?"

"No. And don't let them know what you are doing. The last thing I want is for these people to think we sanction what they are doing." He turned to Hilda and Matthew, who were standing next to each other looking very much like a couple. "Hilda, you'll go in the 606 with Matthew. I'll take the 808."

Her jaw dropped. "Holland!"

"I know, I know. It isn't fair. But I have to be out there." He waved her protest away. "And it's not like I'm making you stay on the ship."

Hilda folded her arms across her chest, pouting. Matthew patted her ebony shoulders consolingly. Holland hated doing this to her, but he wouldn't be much a leader if he sent people into danger and didn't put himself also in the fight. Her discontent reminded him how much he missed having an LFO. At least she recognized the seriousness of what they were doing enough not to caution him against destroying her 808 too.

"I think it would also be a good idea to keep an ear on radio traffic, since we are depending on these guy's assault," Hap suggested. "We don't want something to change and not know about it."

Holland agreed. "Gidget, you want the job?"

She nodded excitedly. Holland envied her energy; he was starting to feel much older than he had in a while, and he wasn't even thirty yet. "Anything else?"

There was a lot of head shaking.

"Alright, lets get this thing prepped. You got your assignments."

As the crew scattered to their station or to tend to their duties, Holland noticed Talho, who was yet to say much of anything was staring absently at the heavily-armored shape of the 808. He came to stand besides her and placed an arm around her waist. She unceremoniously pushed him away.

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"You know, you don't owe those two anything," she said bitterly. "They tried to kill you."

Holland's eyebrows came down into an ugly frown. "Where is this coming from? I thought you liked Dominic and Anemone."

"I like them just fine," she said. "But not enough that I would like to see you get killed for their sakes."

"I am not getting killed."

Talho turned fully to face him. Her expression was angry, but Holland saw something else there--a kind of sickening concern. She was deadly afraid for him. He was her lover, but more importantly, the father of the little creature growing inside of her. Far from holding it against her, Holland found he suddenly hated himself.

"Do you know that?" she roared. "Can you tell me, right know, that nothing will happen to you? That our child won't grow without a father? Can you promise me that?"

Holland raised his hands, intending to calm her down. "Talho …"

"CAN YOU?" Her voice was breaking now. There were tears running down her cheeks. "Or are you going to go and put yourself in harm's way like you always do and damn the consequences?"

And that was when he hugged her. At first he thought she might push him away in her anger, but she didn't and simply allowed him to hold her. Words were meaningless now because nothing he could say could possible diminish her grief and the worry at seeing him go into combat against an enemy they knew nothing about. So he held her, and hoped it was enough to reassure her, even a little, that he had no intention of leaving her all alone with their child. But he owed it to Dominic and Anemone to look after them also. It wasn't easy, to choose between his love for her and his sense of responsibility, but even if he had to destroy everything in his path, there wasn't a force in the world powerful enough to keep him away from her.

And so combat was not even an issue in his mind. He would go out there, and he would do whatever it took to win, and then he would come back to hug her again. That wasn't cockiness, that was fact.

* * *

IX

Dominic could only estimate how far outside the city they had been taken, but he guessed it was pretty far. Night had fallen by the time the truck reached a stop and they were told to get out. Dominic, Anemone, and the other hostages did so without protest, but as his feet hit the ground, the world took a violent spin and his knees turned to jelly. Before he knew what had happened, Anemone--in a reversal of their usual roles--was helping him up. He felt pretty damn stupid.

As the militias climbed off behind them, Dominic managed to look around. And what he saw surprised them. There people here, and not just the sort of people one would expect at a military camp. There were men, but also women and children, all living in flimsy canvas tents, tending cooking fires, looking disheveled and ragged. The camp was arranged in a circle around what looked like an abandoned storage building, the large steel gates of which had been thrown open to reveal a large amount of ordnance been hidden inside, and was surrounded by thick shrubbery and high cliffs that loomed overhead.

That was what he had expected, some kind of defensible position, but not—

And then he realized Anemone's fingers were digging into his arm. He turned to look and saw her face had gone completely slack, and she was staring absently at the people around her. "Anemone?"

"What is this place?" she said to no one in particular.

Dominic shook his head.

"You two," Simon, who after getting off the truck had been talking to one of the civilians as if obtaining some critical information, called after them. "Inside. You'll be warmer there."

Gulliver at their heels, they followed Art, Simon's bodyguard, through the camp along with the other hostages picked up at the bank, having to dodge children as they ran around them chasing each and laughing in that hopelessly oblivious way that only children possessed. Dominic was shocked. No responsible military leader would surround himself with innocent civilians. Or was that just the point? Were these people meant as human shields?

No. Even as the thought occurred to him, it was quickly dismissed. The looks on these people's faces, and the sense he got from them were not those of hostages herded here against their will. It was more like contentment, relief. The sort of thing he'd seen and gotten used to before he'd met Dewey Novak, when he had lived in a refugee camp.

A shiver shot down his spine.

Refugees?

But there were no refugees in Ravensbruck. It wasn't the sort of thing that was easy to miss. He would have heard something if there were, it would have been on the news or on the papers. Somewhere somebody would have mentioned it. Lots of people had been affected by the Coralian counter-attack after Dewey destroyed their Control Cluster, but not here. Ravensbruck was supposed to be untouched.

The inside of the storage building was illuminated a bright orange by the fire that had been lit besides some of the crates Dominic had noticed earlier. Now that he had a closer he realized that he'd been wrong about his original assumption; there were weapons here, lots of them, but also a lot of food and water and medical supplies. Far more than were required even by people such as these. There were several large hulks covered by sheets of canvas on a corner surrounded by cables and computer terminals. A sleek metal gun barrel jutted out from among the folds of this covering as it would from a KLF. Dominic recognized that was probably just what he was looking at.

A young dark-haired girl was working on the computers, but she paid the newcomers no more than a curious glance over her shoulder.

"You stay here tonight," Art said, pointing around the fire. His voice was deep, the sort one would expect from singers, though he was built like a black bull. Several unsatisfied grumbles filled the air. He ignored this. "We are scrounging some blankets for you, but you'll have a guard, so don't think this is some kind of wildlife vacation."

They sat around the fire, making themselves as comfortable as they could, and also placing their backs against the nearby crates so they would have something to lean on and rest. Dominic pulled Anemone into his arms, feeling her warmth and letting her feel his. Gulliver curled up besides them. Anemone soon had her head lay wearily on his shoulder, though her eyes were wide open. She must be really tired, he thought, kicking himself mentally for allowing them to be caught up in this, but also knowing that he couldn't afford to dwell too much on what happened.

What was done was done, and now, more than at any other time, the advice she had given him that very afternoon seemed to have urgent meaning. He needed to stop thinking about the past and focus on the present; he had to if he wanted to get Anemone out of this.

Art stood over them for a while, then was relived by a much younger looking man, barely out of boyhood. They exchanged a few joking words; Dominic recognized the newcomer's voice as that of the man they had first stopped outside the bank. He took over watching the hostages and Art walked off towards the girl working on the covered KLFs.

Dominic's eyes followed him, hoping to perhaps overhear something that might help them out of this jam, but both Art and the girl spoke in such soft whispers that it was impossible to pick up on any part of their conversation. He did notice, however, that she had started to blush and, though he was easily three times her size, hit him playfully and made an indignantly angry face that reminded him of the way Anemone sometimes acted.

As if instructed by his thoughts, Anemone tugged on his sleeve. "Hey, Dominic."

Turning his attention back to her, he saw that she looking intently at the wall opposite them. It had been filled in bright graffiti, of all sorts of colors that were, even in the orange flickering glow of the flames still distinct and vivid. But what really struck Dominic were the words that been scrawled there in a sort of elaborate free-flowing script, put there by someone who clearly had a mastery of such art …

Justicia. Tierra. Libertad.

Dominic frowned gravely, rolling the words around in his head. What the hell was going on in this town?

* * *

To be continued … 

Notes: Just for giggles, here are some of the references. I hope you managed to catch some of them, but whatever. The title 'Physical Graffiti' is a Led Zeppelin album. Since all Eureka Seven episodes are based on musical references I thought that was fitting. The names of the ACCs, Simon and Art are references to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, and Jan van Eyck was a famous Flemish (that is, Dutch—from Holland. Get it?) painter. There's more but I'd rather let you find the stuff out by yourselves.


	2. Black Friday Rule

Disclaimer: Same as always. I don't own anything, don't sue me, blah, blah, blah

Beta Warning: Yes, I don't know where my pre-readers are when I need them. Sorry for the wait. Also, I took out the numbers at the start of scenes. Mostly because it was too much of a drag to keep up with the numbering. Very Shikamaru-like, I know.

* * *

Eureka Seven: Withdrawal Syndrome 

By Rommel

Two: "Black Friday Rule."

* * *

It was late. 

How late precisely Dominic could not tell. At least several hours had passed since Anemone had gone to sleep, her head resting on his shoulder, his arms safely enfolding her. He envied the ease with which she had been able to slip away as he had found it impossible to do so himself. But it was just as well; he was responsible for them, Anemone and Gulliver, who was also sleep next to him. He had to stay awake to protect them.

The other hostages had long ago dozed off around the fire that crackled in the middle of their group, the flames rising and falling in the breeze that sneaked in from the building's huge open gate and whistled around the metal structure.

Aside from having sat cross-legged on the ground by the fire, she guard watching over them had hardly moved. The rifle was still in his hands. He was the same guy whom they had first seen outside the bank the day before.

Several times he had seen other rebels coming and going, picking things from among the supplies kept in the building and returning outside to where the other civilians were encamped.

Besides him, Anemone stirred in her sleep, making a soft mewling noise. He pulled her closer, taking one of her hands in his and squeezing, hoping that even in her dreams she would know that he was there, and looked down at her. She seemed peaceful, but her relaxed features hid just how much trouble they were in.

Dominic had been trying to work things out in his head, but no matter how he tried to analyze it the fact remained that unless he came up with something they weren't likely to make it out alive. As soon as this people found out who they were, Dominic was convinced they would kill Anemone.

And before they could do that they would have to kill him.

Beyond the fire he heard the hubbub of conversation. He recognized the voices, Simon, the leader of this band of renegades, and his bodyguard, Art. They were arguing about something Dominic couldn't make out. It was a heated argument but not enough as to signify true dissent. Perhaps it was a good sign--having served under Dewey for so long had taught him not to question authority and that had almost destroyed the person he loved.

He would not be following anyone blindly again. Never. And he could not sit by any longer doing noting; if they were going to survive he needed to come up with a plan. Looking down at Anemone's sleeping form again he made his decision.

Moving slowly and with great care, he took his arms from around Anemone and reached back, grabbing Gulliver by his chubby collar and pulling him close. He laid Anemone's head gently down on this warm flurry pillow as he moved out from under her. She grumbled sleepily, subconsciously adjusting her arms to the new position so they were tucked in against her chest; Gulliver's round eyes fluttered open. He cooed inquisitively.

Dominic placed his finger over the animal's snout to quiet him. "I'll be right back," he told him in barely audible whisper. "Stay put—I mean it this time."

Gulliver nodded.

Reassured, Dominic got to his feet and walked around the fire towards the sitting guard, his hands extended out in front of him to show he meant no harm. The young man tensed immediately upon seeing him and jumped to his feet, his riffle held up at the ready.

"I want to talk to Simon," Dominic said pleasantly. "I might be able to help."

The man frowned in confusion. "Help with what?"

"Whatever I can. You tell me."

The man looked him over, top to bottom and back up, searching for a ploy. It occurred to Dominic that perhaps he should have come up with one, certainly one better than what he was about to do. No, it wouldn't work. These guys didn't know the meaning of trust; he couldn't expect they would acquiesce to any request he might make. He was wasting—

"What's going on here?"

Both Dominic and the guard turned in unison, to find Simon standing in front of them. In the flicking light of the flames, he looked older than Dominic remembered him in the sunlight. His hair seemed a wavy orange instead of blond; the blue of his eyes was washed out completely.

Before he could answer, the guard said. "He wants to talk to you, sir."

Simon turned his eyes to Dominic, measuring him. "About what?"

"In private, if I may," Dominic said. "I feel that perhaps we can come to an understanding."

He ready for a refusal, so much so that he had already started berating himself for taking such a stupid risk when Simon nodded. "Follow me."

Simon turned and Dominic fell in step behind him. He was led to a small room in the back of the building, which he had not previously noticed located just beyond the crates that lined the near wall, and beyond the bulk of the red canvas-covered KLF. On the way there he noticed several people sleeping covered by worm blankets on the floor, one of whom was the girl he had seen tending to the KLF earlier. The room was filled with supplies, weapons of different calibers and enough ammo to supply a small revolution.

There was another gate at the back, leading down a darkened tunnel that seemed to run into a solid wall of black. The only light came from the open door behind them, and he was thankful for that because it would make him harder to read.

Simon leaned against one of the supply crates. "So then?"

"My name is Dominic Sorel, I told that to your man outside when we met," Dominic started, threading carefully. "My companion—her name doesn't matter right now—and I have been living in the city for just a few weeks, trying to make a life for ourselves now that we are free. She means a lot to me—no, more than that. She means everything. And I know she doesn't look it, but she has been through a lot of pain and suffering, more than I can explain here or hope you to understand."

He paused for a moment, hoping his words would sink in then continued. "What I'm trying to say is that she doesn't deserve this, sir."

Even in the dark he could see Simon's features change. "Most people don't deserve the bad things that happen to them, but that doesn't mean bad things don't happen. That is true for all of us. Why should she be treated any different?"

"Sir, she ... " A dozen things popped in his head, a dozen ways to try to explain how badly Anemone had been forced to live. "She isn't like you or me."

Simon did not appear moved. It was hard to tell.

"Please," Dominic pleaded, now aware that it was a loosing battle, "there is nothing to gain from keeping her here. I have government connections. Not the local authorities but the Federation. I know people. I will help you if you just let her go. I have been a soldier before, but she is blameless."

Simon laughed incredulously.

"As far as most of my men would be concerned," he said, "there is not enough blame in the world to put on that girl's shoulders."

Something cold twisted Dominic's guts, as if a vile invisible hand were trying to make ribbons out of his insides.

He struggled to keep the sudden burst of fear from showing in his voice. "You know who she is?"

Simon nodded grimly.

"And the only reason you are still alive is because I'm the only one here that does," he said. "I'm sorry, but the best thing you can do right now is keep a low profile. Lucky for you with everything that's been happening people's memories are kind of fuzzy. I am the only one that's ever seen her in person before, at a stadium in Bellforest when Dewey Novak introduced his secret weapon against the Coralians." He looked suddenly disgusted. "When everyone chanted in adoration because they thought salvation had arrived."

Suddenly, Dominic remembered that the day before, as they were being herded into the truck, Simon had reached out and grasped Anemone's arm, and she had looked up right into his blue eyes. He had thought it was simply the act of a bully, but now he saw it for what it really was.

Simon had wanted to be sure of who he was taking.

"What are you going to do with us?" Dominic asked point-blank. He felt almost sick with fear now, his eyes dropping in resignation to the floor.

Simon shook his head. "That's the thing, I have no idea. Things have gotten pretty bad since we arrived. I was planning to ransom you back, but I don't think that's an option now."

Dominic frowned questioningly.

"You see," Simon explained, "you would not have been allowed to stay in Ravensbruck without the local administration knowing or getting their consent—since we know what we know. I had assumed that you were working with them. My plan was to trade you for some of my people, but unfortunately my assumption was wrong. That was my logic, and it made sense, but I don't think I was even close," he added.

"What do you mean?" Dominic almost didn't want to know the answer.

"Because I know now the administration doesn't care about your lives—or any of the other hostages for that manner any more than they care about the rest of these people. And I know that because they will be launching a full scale assault in the morning."

Dominic's eyes widened. He lifted his head immediately and stared at Simon as though the man were foaming at the mouth. It couldn't be--

"Assault? What about Anemone?" He managed. And another just as awful thought came to mind. "What about all those civilians outside?"

"Fodder, apparently," Simon said then seeing Dominic's outraged expression even in the dim light, added. "Of course, I'll try to defend them if I can. And the two of you, too."

"Why?"

The question was out before Dominic could help it. He regretted asking it—it didn't really had to be explained to him why this man who had kidnapped them was now bowing to defend them from what, it occurred to him, could be potentially a rescue operation.

Unless everything he'd been told was a lie and Simon would indeed try to use them as pawns. Everything was a possibility.

"You don't know what's been happening here," Simon said. "What we've been trying to accomplish. I think you may have gotten the wrong impression of us."

"Yeah, I don't know how that could happen, with you going around robbing banks and kidnapping innocent people."

Simon didn't seem to mind the sarcasm that slipped into Dominic's voice. "Without money there are no weapons, and without weapons …"

"Your little armed insurrection would be going nowhere," Dominic finished for him.

"True enough." Simon pushed himself away from the crate he'd been leaning against and moved closer to Dominic. "Tell me something, you said you'd been living in the city for a few weeks right?"

Dominic nodded.

"And in all that time, have you hear of people being dissatisfied with their administration in the news? Have you heard about crime? About poverty? There are countless refugees—a city nearby was almost obliterated. What have you hear about them?"

Well, of course he—

"I've tried to keep up with what's going on," Dominic started slowly, as if the pacing would add weight to his argument. "The Second Summer of Love left a lot of people affected—well, the Coralian counter-attack did. But … it's always out of town stuff on the news. It's always somebody else's problem: someone else turning away refugees, hoarding food and energy. Nothing ever happens in Ravensbruck." He felt almost stupidly naïve saying that. "It's supposed to be a good place to live in. That's why I brought her here, so she could be happy."

Even as he spoke the words filled him an overwhelming sense of horror, like pieces of a deadly strategy falling together.

He had brought her here … into a war zone.

Simon seemed to pick up on this. "I would suggest, Dominic Sorel, that you see the world for what it is. After all, the two of you helped create it."

Simon turned away and began walking towards the doorway.

Unable to restrain himself, Dominic called out to him as he was about to disappear into the large space beyond.

"Wait, we didn't … know. We were just following orders. Dewey was always pulling the strings."

"That is why nobody will ever forgive people like you, who were on the wrong side of what happened. Because you aren't sorry. Because you should have known better and still followed. But at least you, Dominic, aren't the face of all that hatred. Your eyes can be forgotten. Not like hers." He shook his head mournfully. "I feel sorry for that girl, I really do. Such a dying hope."

"Like I said before, I am not a murderer. And I will not let anyone be murdered while I can help it, but should my men find out who you are and demand satisfaction, I will have no choice on the matter. Unless that should happen, however, I bow to look after you. And when this is done perhaps you will find out the truth about this city."

Whether Simon was trying to bluff him by playing himself as some kind of hero or outright lying, Dominic couldn't be sure. He didn't say anything more and simply watched as the taller man walked past the hostages, giving a small nod to the guard which was dutifully returned and stepped through the building's open front into the starry night outside.

Morning would not be far in coming, and if he was being told the truth there was a possibility they might not survive.

Simon had seemed to think that the act of launching an assault was implicit proof that the locals cared for neither the hostages nor Dominic and Anemone. And he had admitted that if his men found out who they were they would be killed.

His heart feeling like an lifeless brick, Dominic stood on the spot where Simon had left him for a long time, trying to make sense of it all, his head full of new information and questions, before finally remembering that his place was by Anemone's side.

She needed him; whatever should happen, he would not leave her.

* * *

She felt his hands let go of her and, hearing his soft footsteps in the black silence, dared open her eyes just enough to see him walk way. She heard the whisper of his voice as he talked to the guard, but couldn't make out the words. Language didn't seem to make sense anymore—she didn't need it to.

All that she needed to know was that she couldn't feel his warmth against her skin. She remained motionless, feigning the sleep that in reality would not come because it would keep him from worrying.

It would keep him from asking too many uncomfortable questions.

But … she didn't want him to leave her. He was the only thing that kept her alive. He was the only reason she had now—

And he was walking away from her, off into the dark confines to talk to someone that didn't need talking to. He should be with her. He should be holding her.

She gritted her teeth, and realized that it wasn't just abandonment she was feeling. Why did she want to blame him for leaving? What did she have to offer him in their relationship?

Love? She'd given him that. So what else was there?

It was an awful feeling—to know that she needed someone but that he didn't actually need anything from her. Despite his professed affection for her, she was as disposable as she had always been.

Gulliver stirred underneath her head. She drew her legs up against her chest, curling up on her side like a tight ball, the hard concrete making it impossible to become comfortable. The other hostages were all sitting or leaning on something like had been leaning on him before he had gone.

The guard yawned on the other side of the fire, stretching his arms, then sat back on the ground. She watched him, thinking how ridiculous it was that this kid, who could only have been a few years younger than herself, was supposed to guard her.

Somehow, he reminded her of those Ageha brats Dewey had doted upon while ignoring her—far too young to have any clue what they were doing. She had hated them from the first time they forced her into TheEnd. They never realized how they could be replaced because nothing they did would ever matter.

Meaninglessness was not something easily understood by youth, but she had seen too much, felt too much, hurt too much.

She understood despite her age—it enraged her, but it was the reality.

After what seemed like a very long time she heard footsteps coming back through the silence, headed towards her. Not wanting to give herself away, she lay perfectly still and closed her eyes, and pretended.

That was all she ever did.

When she felt his warm gentle touch once again on her bare skin, she found that a deep part of her was repulsed by it—the broken part of herself that was a fake and didn't deserve to be loved.

And most of that part was the girl called Anemone. The rest … she didn't remember anymore.

* * *

Holland had needed some fresh air and so had taken an elevator out of the stuffy confine of the hangar that held the Gekko up to the tower's observation platform above the tarmac. As he leaned heavily on the rail and filled his lungs with the cool night air, he looked down at the lines of yellow and white light that made up the runways extending into the dark and then abruptly disappearing into nothingness. There was no traffic, nothing to distract him from thoughts he was not sure he wanted to dwell on. 

"You can't sleep either, right?"

Holland heard Hilda's voice behind him. He didn't turn, so she came to lean on the rail next to him, her dark eyes fixed on the distance like his, as if not wanting to let them meet by mutual consensus. "Makes me feel better at least knowing our leader feels the same way before battle."

Holland thought he detected a little resentment in her voice.

"If Talho sent you, then you are wasting your time," he told her.

"Well no, she knows you well enough to know that once you've made up your mind it is nearly impossible to make you change it." She added, "You are so stubborn like that."

She fell silent after that, allowing Holland to sink back into the uncertainty he was feeling. It wasn't fear—he had been through and done worse and always came out on top; it was more like ... like falling from your board while holding something important and not knowing just how exactly to break your fall without destroying that something. He could let go of that something and brace himself, or he could hold on and do himself more harm. There just wasn't a good solution. And it would be worse knowing that if something did happen, that if he died, he would be leaving behind a broken heart and an innocent child who would never meet his father.

"Talho talked to you?" Holland asked suddenly, his voice low. "Did she say I'm a bad father?"

"Of course not."

Holland sighed. "Maybe somebody should."

"Holland!"

He straightened up and looked at her for the first time since she had come up to join him. He found her eyes peering at him with concern; her short black hair hardly moved in the breeze. "Aren't I?" Holland said. "When I chose to go after two people who gave us nothing but trouble instead of being safe?"

Hilda pushed herself upright, then turned and rested the small of her back the rail, folding her well-toned arms across her chest.

"Nobody will ever accuse you of that," Hilda said. "Because you aren't. Trying to take responsibility does not make you a bad person. But it can make you reckless, like you have something to prove. And that doesn't usually end very well."

Holland to admit she was right and was about to say something when a noise from bellow caught his attention. Both of them turned in unison and peered over the rail at the tarmac a hundred feet bellow them.

A square of white light had opened up on the concrete, lined by smaller red lights that ran down into a black shaft—an elevator, like the one the Gekko had used the day before only much smaller. Slowly the lights began to disappear as the elevator rose to the surface.

And from the blackness emerged three armored humanoid figures:

KLFs.

"Well, they mean business alright," Hilda said, her eyes riveted to the KLFs as several technicians appeared to tend to them. The Mon-Soono had never been known for their design—and in fact were some of the ugliest machines Holland had ever seen—but seeing them painted black had a strange effect on him. They looked more menacing somehow.

Another image appeared in his mind: a black thing, spiked and sleek, its black armor glinting in the sunlight, its razor sharp claws drawn, its red eyes coming straight at him.

TheEnd ... and Anemone; the girl that had almost killed him ... had almost made his child fatherless without even breaking a sweat and laughing as she did it ... had almost taken down Renton and Eureka. And if he had met her with the 303 Devilfish he could have almost ...

There was a lot activity going on now. Ammo drums were being rolled out; large heavy assault rifles and--much to Holland's distaste--missiles were readied and equipped on the KLFs, belts feeding round after round into the sides of the weapons; loud voices called out giving or demanding directions.

Standard doctrine frowned on using close combat weapons like knifes, like the Nirvash and Gekkostate had used, and so Holland was not surprised to see none of those—only wastefulness, as a skilled pilot could turn even the simplest blade into a far deadlier weapon.

"They must be anticipating major resistance to bring this much firepower into a fight," from somewhere outside his thoughts he heard Hilda say. "That, or they are not very confident in their own ground forces."

"Or both," said Holland. "But you know what they say, there is no such thing as overkill in battle."

Hilda sighed, leaning back on the rail and hanging her head. "It just had to be on a Friday."

* * *

Even with all the sudden activity as the earliest rays of the sun rose in the east, Dominic had managed to scavenge a bowl of dry cereal for Anemone. It hadn't taken much to convinced the captors, Simon in particular, that she needed food. And it had taken even less for one of the civilians, a single mother by the looks of her, to offer him something after having overheard him. 

The camp had been in chaos as he rushed outside, people pushing each other as they were being herded inside the large metal building in preparation for the up coming assault. A hundred loud voices joined together so it was impossible to tell what anyone was saying as they crowded together.

Dominic had been allowed free reign, pretty much—the rebels being much to busy digging what looked like trenches in concentric circles and directing people to watch over him as he followed the woman to her small grayish tent, got some cereal from what were clearly very limited supplies intended for her two small children. He had giving her his sincere thanks and headed back through the camp.

There were children running in all directions, sending a strong pang of fear to his gut. Children. And there was whole mess of hostiles coming in. It wouldn't be good for any of them to be caught in the crossfire, but putting children in this situation was just wrong.

Holding on to his precious cargo, Dominic pushed past another group of people, and rushed the final few yards to building's main hangar-like entrance. People were arranged in rows and herded together by the rebels almost like cattle, but though there was a great deal of fear and anxiety, none of it seemed to be related to the armed men around them.

From what he had managed to hear, the plan was to barricade the civilians inside the building while the battle raged outside, a valid strategy except for the fact that Dominic, Anemone, and the other hostages—ostensibly the target of the raid—would be inside also.

A breach of the building would be inevitable, but in the racket and confusion no one seemed to be thinking of the hostages anymore.

The last of the crowd was ushered in before he was allowed to. He waited impatiently, then, picking up a guard again headed back to where Anemone and the hostages were located near the back of the building.

Dominic found her right where he'd left her, and was glad to see she was awake.

Anemone sat at the base of the one of the massive metal crates that dotted the warehouse—several of which at already been open to reveal they were packed with weapons—Gulliver by her side, holding her head in a hand, and rubbing her temples absently. She had her eyes closed, but when he dropped to his knees next to her she opened and looked up at him.

Her face was hard, her surreal purple eyes dull, and she seemed to be in a very bad mood.

"Here, Anemone," Dominic said offering her the bowl of cereal, then adding apologetically, "Sorry it took me so long. I know you are hungry."

Anemone said nothing, and just glared at him for what seemed to Dominic like a whole minute before turning her head away.

He blinked confusedly, not knowing what was wrong with her so suddenly. If she was mad at him—she probably had every right to be considering their situation, but he had tried to help her.

He inched closer, the bowl held up as peace offering. "Please, you have to eat some—"

Anemone sent the bowl and its contents flying with a violent swipe of her hand.

Dominic recoiled out of instinct; Gulliver jumped to his tiny feet, suddenly startled, and looked around rapidly as if expecting to have to defend them from some unknown attacker, then seeing only Dominic looked to Anemone questioningly.

She turned away from both of them without a word.

Completely perplexed, Dominic regarded her with a great deal of concern. "What's the matter, Anemone?"

This time she didn't even turn to look at him; her eyes remained closed. Her face was that of someone who was being annoyed, but she did not have the characteristic snarl of downright anger she had worn many times before.

"Anemone?" Real worry seeped into Dominic's voice. "Please, tell me what's wrong."

"I don't feel very well!" Anemone's face scrunched up. "Can't you see that?"

He was taken aback by her sudden unwarranted harshness, and the obvious vile in her voice. He stared at her again, struggling to decide if he should say something or do as she bid and shut up.

Dominic opened his mouth and was about to speak when the loud noise of dozens of boots on concrete got his attention. He turned to see Simon surrounded by almost every insurgent headed his way. There were a lot of the civilians too, all men. They were loaded head to toe with weapons and armor—rifles, pistols, belts of ammo. The rebels all wore fatigues and body armor, but the civilians wore nothing more than regular clothes.

He didn't understand: had the civies been press-ganged? Had they volunteered, and if so why?

As they walked by the hostages, Simon signaled for the guard watching over to leave his post and join them. Dominic still hadn't picked up the man's name, but it had become clear he was one of the youngest rebels encamped here.

Art, as always, was by his leader's side, and was the first to speak. "Perimeter checks are coming in," he said in his deep voice. "Looks like heavy infantry and some KLFs."

The crowd of insurgents started murmuring worriedly, looking at each other with almost frightened eyes.

Simon, who had his arms folded across his chest, did not appear troubled at all, and as he raised a hand everyone around him fell into a brooding silence. Expectantly, everyone, even Dominic, focused their eyes on him.

"We knew this would happen," Simon said. "They would be stupid not to. Art," he turned towards his bodyguard, "I want you on the roof with a case of stingers. The gorges that feed into his place create natural funnels through which they have to bring in their infantry to get at us. They wouldn't deploy their KLFs on the ground—the danger of creating a roadblock would negate their tactical advantage. They will look for air superiority. Stingers are cheap. Use as many as you need."

The girl, the one Dominic had seen servicing the red KLF the night before, stepped in. She had a small portable computer in her hands. "The new LM penetrators should make short work of their armor. And I kept the receipt so let me know if they don't."

Art laughed. "Magdy, if we are dead don't you think that voids the warranty?"

"Maybe," Simon said. "They should work just fine. Once we have denied them air superiority things will be much easier. What about the civilians?"

Another man stepped forward from the crow, a shaggy-dressed civilian carrying a mean looking assault riffle and dirty black hair that fell down to his shoulders.

"Yeah?" the man said. "We are ready. I have someone outside pulling the last of the pins now. Anti-infantry pattern, as you said. But we are still digging."

Simon nodded. "Unfortunately there hasn't been time for deeper trenches, but the camp outside and the mines should slow them down for our fields of fire. Just keep a low profile. Without KLFs covering them, they'll have to overtake them one by one. Heavy machine guns to the roof with Art. Everyone else to the front and find all the cover you can." He paused, considered carefully his next words. "Shoot to kill. No prisoners. You know what to do if you are about to be overrun."

"What is the last fallback line?" One of the insurgents asked.

"The gate," Simon replied. "The civilians will all be towards the rear of the building, behind the Tomato, for cover, so the gate is the last defensible position. If you think you have a chance of being taken alive, you may do so as long as you remember … it is your choice."

Dominic found that a very strange thing to say. He couldn't understand why any military leader about to go into combat would tell his troops that it was okay to be taken prisoner on the eve of a battle. Such a thing would only encourage desertion, but the solemn nods from the assembled insurgents made it seem as though deserting was the furthest thing from their minds.

Something else was going on here—something going unspoken but that everyone around Simon already knew.

"That's all I've got," Simon finished. "It's been my honor to know you all. I guess I should give a rousing speech now, right?" He cleared his throat rather dramatically.

"Well, what is there to say?" he asked. "You have no homes, and no families to mourn you when you are gone. But the man next to you will mourn you. I will mourn you, and you may have to do the same thing for me. I know this isn't what of you wanted—it isn't what I wanted—but it is what we have been brought to." He paused, and suddenly, what had started as an attempt at being sarcastic had turned very serious. "And if we must die then let us nobly die, so that even our enemies will be constrained to honor us."

Art lifted up his rifle on one hand, pumping it into the air. "Justicia! Tierra! Libertad!"

And then a roar of anger and pride rose from the crowd of insurgents, weapons thrust in the air. Repeating those words over and over.

"Justicia! Tierra! Libertad!"

Dominic had learned that such gestured were often meant to dissipate fear, and he had a hard time believing any of these guys would be willing to lay down their lives for whatever cause—they were criminals after all. But as the roaring reached a fever pitch, the civilians too seemed to get caught up in the moment and joined in with cheering and applause.

"Justicia. Tierra! Libertad!"

Dominic turned his disbelieving gaze to them. Weren't they scared? They had to be. Hell was about to break loosed around them, and they were cheering?

"Dammit," Anemone cursed. She had lifted her head while Dominic wasn't looking and was now staring at Simon. "Why can't they all just shut up?"

Dominic moved closer to her, relieved at least that she was talking.

"Anemone?"

"It's so stupid," Anemone said, seemingly unaware that he was listening. "There is nothing noble about death. When you die all you do is … die."

"Don't worry," Dominic said in his softest, most consoling voice. "We'll be fine. We are unarmed hostages. We won't be harmed."

At those words, Anemone turned her eyes to him.

Eyes that were narrowed into slits and brimming with--

Dominic felt a shiver run down his spine, and almost moved away. He had seen it many times before, back when she lived in pain; when misery and loneliness were the only emotions she could feel and ...

"We'll be fine," Dominic repeated as much for his benefit as for hers, ignorant of how he had managed to find the words. "I ... I'll save you."

"If you really think that, you are even more stupid than they are. Nothing is going to be fine. You can't save anything."

Something hard and hurtful suddenly punctured his heart. As her reply echoed inside his head, he let his hands fall way from her shoulders, and sat back feeling rather useless. "I'm sorry."

On the periphery, the rebels were scattering hurriedly, the noise of boots and dozens of running bodies and the clanging of weapons moved pass them on the way to the building's open main gate, Simon's last line. Art and a few others were headed deeper within the building, however, to where a rickety metal ladder was welded onto the wall headed up to a hatch on the roof.

Their young guard was detained by Simon and quietly spoken to, then returned to watch over them. Dominic could detect a clear resentment that hadn't been there before.

No doubt he would rather be outside with his comrades than inside acting as a heavily armed babysitter.

Knowing what was about to happen, Dominic tried not to look at him—he might be dead along with the rest of his buddies within an hour—but Anemone stared him down.

"And what the hell do you want?" she asked the guard in the same vile-filled voice she had used with Dominic.

"I'm supposed to watch you hostages," he said flatly. "Someone has to keep you safe."

"Ah, the coward of the group."

The guard flinched.

Dominic, still on his knees, quickly placed himself in front of Anemone as a human shield.

But the gun was never raised in anger as he had expected; the safety was never even removed. The guard just stood there regarding this strange girl with a mixture of puzzlement and what looked like admiration.

"Well, if you don't appreciate it," he said, "feel free to go outside and jump in front of a bullet."

Anemone laughed sharply, a familiar laugh that did nothing but fan Dominic's fears. "Bullets are for losers." She grinned wickedly. "Real killers have claws."

Even Gulliver and the other hostages were staring at her now, but their attention was soon drawn away by something else.

A loud echoing explosion.

* * *

From almost ten kilometers up, Holland watched through the 808's augmented visual feed one of the black KLFs take a hit by a small AAM projectile and explode into a bright, soundless fireball as the liquid metal penetrator punched through the armor on impact. 

Not a good start, but it didn't affect his plan in the slightest.

The Gekko and both of its LFO's, Holland in the 808 and Mathew and Hilda in the 606, had maintained radio silence hovering above the battleground at altitude to keep from being spotted or targeted as the local military police force approached the rebel strong point.

They were in for a fight. A single surveying glance at the rebel position had confirmed Holland's nagging suspicion that these guys weren't stupid. What appeared to be the command post was located inside a large metal building, almost like a hangar, with a branching system of gorges and high cliffs spreading for miles around it like a deadly spiderweb.

The ground approach would be a tedious job, as the infantry wound their way through the maze with only maps or recon information from the airborne KLFs to guide them since Holland knew there were no geo-synchronous GPS satellites on this orbit.

The only easy way in was through the air, but the rebels seemed to have figured that one out already. Just as good; he had no intention of getting them involved in a long fight.

The Gekko was here for only two people after all.

"One-Three is down," came the call over the radio. "Repeat, One-Three is down."

Holland couldn't help the snicker. Woz had managed to hack into the locals tactical frequency without too much trouble. Given the fact that he had very little information on who they are fighting here, Holland was keen on gaining as much as he could, even it the means weren't exactly legal. This was Gekkostate's way of doing things. The 'poor bloody infantry' down there wouldn't mind; they were technically on the same side.

"Looks like these guys are no push-over," Hilda said over the radio.

Holland looked out of the starboard side of his canopy and saw the 606 gliding there, its board leaving a glowing trail of green trapar in its wake. Through the clear canopy he could see Mathew pain close attention to his controls, but Hilda was looking back the 808.

Holland felt an odd sense of guilt; he was piloting her vehicle into combat, after all, leaving her the role of a backseat driver. He shock his head, returning his attention to his instruments.

Guilt would have to wait.

"Do we have a bead on the ground forces?" he called over the encrypted channel that the LFOs and the Gekko were sharing.

"We do, Leader," Woz replied from above him on the Gekko. "About 100 yards from that main building. There seem to be two defensive lines set up, one outer and one inner. Not a lot of com chatter though. Those guys are either scare or very focused."

"As long as they are not focused on us," Mathew said. "I'd hate to become the center of attention."

"What are you talking about," Hilda interrupted, "you love being the center of attention."

"Not in a firefight," he quipped in return.

Holland huffed, "Maybe I should have let her pilot and put Mathew in the back."

Almost simultaneously he heard Mathew's insulted huff and Hilda's sardonic "I told you so" groan. There really wouldn't be a difference in who was piloting. Both of them highly skilled and hardcore, and either made for a great wingman.

"Are you done bickering?" Talho said, and even over the electronic quality of the radio he could hear the annoyance in her voice. "A lot of people are about to start shooting at each other. You think you can be serious for a while?"

"They already started," Holland corrected. "And I am serious."

"Then act like it."

"Yes, Ma'am," Hilda and Mathew called at once from the 606.

Holland looked down at the ring on his right hand, stroking it absently with his thumb. He understood Talho's concern—in a way even blamed himself for it. But he also felt that she too understood him in return. He clicked his microphone.

"Lets do this thing."

* * *

In a way, gunfire heard from a distance had the same harmless ethereal quality as music. 

Dominic had heard that old veterans could tell what weapons were being fired and from which direction just by listening to the dry tune of violence and death. But being stuck inside a large metal building while bullets--and who knew what else--flew outside, pinging against the outside of the walls, gave him the right to not care about any of that.

The only thing—only one he cared about was sitting on the ground besides him, not speaking to him and not even letting him hold her, a hand pressed to her temple as the battle raged loudly outside.

As Simon had said the frightened hostages and the civilians had been moved to the rear of the building. With the heavy front gates shut they are as safe as it was possible from the incoming gunfire as it was possible.

Most of the rebels were either outside manning the trenches Dominic had seen on the front of the building of on the roof. Simon and the girl named Magdy had set up some kind of CIC at the foot of the red, canvas-covered KLF and were monitoring the situation through a single computer terminal.

Every string of gunfire brought new cries of anguish from the huddled civilians. Fear and anxiety were heavy in the air, and Dominic could feel them as plain as he could fear his own heart beating strongly in his chest.

The din inside the building soon became unbearable as bullets hit and ricocheted off, echoing loudly from the walls and the vibration intensified the noise until nothing else could be hear as more and more rounds found the building a target too large to miss.

The ground shook, shaken by a loud explosion that reverberated in the closed space.

Dominic looked towards Simon. The rebel leader was holding a headset to his ear, listening intently with a concerned frown. Next to him was the girl, a similar expression on her face.

Dominic got to his feet, causing their guard to tense and raise his gun.

"It's okay," Dominic told the guard. "I just want to know what's going on." He nodded towards Simon.

The young guard looked him over briefly then nodded in return, though he didn't seem to be paying much attention.

Outside the battle was raging, the sounds of death growing more furious as Dominic imagined the local law enforcement troopers creeping closer and closer to the hostages through trenches and the hail of ammunition.

Dominic got to his feet and walked over to where Simon and Magdy were kneeling.

The blond man looked up as he approached, his face serious but not hostile. "What?"

"It is not too late," Dominic said, almost having to yell to be heard over the noise despite only being a few feet away. "You can still surrender."

"Funny," Simon said. "I was about to ask them if they wanted to surrender."

There was no levity in the way he said this, prompting Dominic to think that it was not supposed to be funny at all. "Even if you win, then what?"

"We move on," Simon said thoughtfully. "We always just move on. You can't think of battle in terms of absolute. An engagement is just a piece of a puzzle. That way win or loose--" He suddenly stopped and reached up to touch the headpiece. "Art, can you repeat that?"

There was moment of silence. Simon closed his piercing blue eyes, his expression falling.

Magdy stopped what she was doing and moved closer to Simon, her body language indicating she was expecting bad news. She was so close in fact she they could have shared the headset without any need to take it off.

"What?" she asked hurriedly.

"We have a problem," Simon replied, turning his head to the huge KLF behind them. "I need you to fire up the Tomato. As quickly as possible."

The girl's dark eyes shot wide as saucers. "What? Why?"

"Gekkostate is here."

Dominic's heart skipped a beat from sheer joy.

Holland wouldn't let anything happen to Anemone. After all the things Dewey had done to her, as the man's brother, he had promised to protect her just like he had protected Eureka. Dominic had never had a reason to doubt that.

In the short time he'd known Holland he'd realized that far from the terrorist he'd been made out to be, the former SOF ace was a noble man, who didn't hold a grudge for what and Anemone and TheEnd had done.

He was someone Dominic could trust with Anemone's life. He knew that from the way Holland had spoken to them on the Gekko's hangar right before they parted to bring Renton to Eureka. From how he had looked at Anemone with kindness and a flash of regret in his eyes as if to say he was sorry for his brother.

And suddenly Dominic didn't need to be told why Gekkostate was here. He knew as certainly as he knew he loved Anemone.

Holland was coming to fulfill his promise.

A wide smile of relief spread across Magdy's face, a gesture that seemed to wipe away the uncertainty from her face. "That's great!" she pipped up happily. "We should crack open a comm. channel."

Simon shook his head slowly. Something is his eyes was wrong.

"It seems they are fighting with Odilo," he said.

In the split second between hearing the words and what must have been a horrible realization, Magdy's face slipped through the widest rage of human emotion Dominic had seen in a long time. Happiness. Surprise. Shock. Anger.

To the point of tears.

"That ... that ..." Magdy stuttered, her voice a stunned whisper, "... that can't be. Why would they ... why would Holland Novak..."

Simon ripped off his headset and threw it on the ground. For the first time since meeting him, Dominic heard anger in his voice as he turned to Magdy.

"Whatever the reason. I need you to get the Tomato ready. Now."

She pulled her arms fearfully to her chest, her quaking fists pressed against her greasy coveralls. "But ... but you can't fight Holland Novak. You can't!"

"Do you think I want to!" Simon yelled at her. "Even if I win--"

Magdy shrieked, clearly appalled at the idea of shooting down Holland. She fixed her eyes on Simon, biting down on her lips to keep from protesting.

"If Holland Novak has chosen this as his path, then maybe he's no better than Dewey," Simon said, his voice settled back to its normal pensive tone. "Maybe we were wrong."

"You can't know that he's chosen anything!" Finally Magdy did not seem able to control herself. "Odilo could have lied to him for all you know!"

Simon looked at her seriously. "Lie to Holland? The man who saw through Dewey's plans all along? How could be he lied to by a swine like Odilo?"

Another explosion. The whole world seemed to shake.

"Magdy, I'm giving you an order!" Simon bellowed.

For a short moment the girl did nothing and just stared at Simon as if he had lost his mind. Like someone seeing her idol in a new light and realizing that maybe he wasn't all he was cracked up to be.

Realizing this, Simon put an arm gently on her shoulder. "If something should happen to me … I want you and Art to find a quiet place somewhere and keep your heads down for a while. He knows what to do after that."

"I…"

"I'm sorry. Do this for me, please." His eyes flashed a kind of sadness that reflected that in her eyes, sharing a common grief, a common disillusionment.

Magdy nodded. She wriggled out of Simon's grasp and rushed over the red KLF and quickly began pulling it canvas blanket off. As she did Simon turned to Dominic and gave a look that made it clear he wasn't supposed to have heard any of that, before silently joining the struggling girl.

Much bigger and stronger, Simon managed to get the canvas off without much difficulty, giving Dominic his first real look at the KLF. It massive, larger even than the Monsoono, and its tomato-red color was definitely not Federation standard. Definitely very illegal, whatever it was and wherever it came from. It was boxier too, lacking the sleek lines of the TheEnd or even the Nirvash, its head equipped with a single red orb for an eye.

Once the KLF was uncovered, Magdy pulled up a computer terminal which had been tucked in between its legs and furiously began typing in commands. "Working through the safety checks," she said. "Not sure about the limiters. I didn't get a chance to double-check the safety parameters. You might get some bad feedback."

"I'll manage." Simon grabbed a handhold on the machine's sturdy frame and pulled himself up to its torso with ease. "Give me weapons and sensors."

"Weapons are hot. Two hundred and fifty rounds on your main gun. Armor piercing. Technically. They are surplus, you know. Sensors are good too."

Simon nodded at her update, and hit a hidden button along were the KLF's armored breastplates met and moved out of the way as the whole front was lifted up with a loud mechanical hiss, exposing the sealed cockpit within.

Simon swung by his handhold into the cockpit and immediately strapped himself in. "Remember what I said. If anything happens to me …"

"Just go!" Magdy yelled, again on the verge of tears. "I'll open the door for you. Be careful. You know how I worry."

Without bothering to hear his farewell, she turned back to her computer.

A loud reverberating noise filled the building. Dominic looked up to find the roof located just above the KLF was sliding open like giant doors on rails. The clear blue of the morning sky was visibly through the new opening. The warm rays of sunlight created a bright spot on the building floor, surrounding the KLF, Dominic, Anemone and the hostages in a warmth glow.

Heavy servos creaking, the KLF sprang powerfully into the crisp air, reaching around to its broad back to pull a lifting board seemingly out of nothing. It flew out of the building propelled by its ignited booster rockets, flashing emerald green trapar as it lifted spiraling away on its board, red armor glinting brightly, large gun pointed defiantly at the sky.

Dominic stared it as it went. Magdy could not bring herself to look.

* * *

"Hey," Talho's voice broke through the comm. with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. "Enemy KLF incoming." 

And a second later, Holland heard through the hacked communications, "All units be advised, Forward CP reports airborne units. Possible KLF contact. Specs unknown. Probably black market. Terminate with extreme prejudice."

Holland gave his main tactical display a quick glance. It showed a bulky red KLF had sprung out from the rebel's main building and was swooping around in an ascending spiral, headed for the last remaining black Monsoono. Just by the way it was maneuvering, shifting its heavy on its board and maintaining a steady rate of climb despite the close diameter of its spiral, Holland cold tell this guy knew what he was doing.

It also didn't help that he could see a huge shoulder-mounted cannon with likely enough power to punch through any of their LFOs' armor.

"Talho, can you get me some ID on the KLF?" Holland asked over the radio. "I'd like to know what we are up against."

"Negative," her reply came immediately. "Woz already ran it through the database. Local DJ guy is right. It's probably black market specs. That could be good. Black marketers are not known for their quality."

"Or it could be very, very bad," Holland grumbled. This was just like when he'd gone up against TheEnd. He could only hope this time it would end better and not with him getting shot down in hostile territory.

"Leader," he heard Matthew's call, "are you checking your monitor."

"Affirmative."

"This guy is good," Matthew said unnecessarily.

"Yeah, I see that," Holland replied. "Your ability to spot the obvious is amazing."

"I'm just saying, looks we are in for a fi—"

And just like that, the last Monsoono disappeared in a bright explosion and fiery cloud that filled up Holland's monitor. He had killed enough KLF pilots himself to not feel remorse for another life lost, but the seeming ease with which it had happened was unsettling.

"Give me a guess," he called over the open channel, "what do you think the effective range of that gun is?"

"A kilometer, maybe," that from Talho. "But it's still ballistic by the looks of it, meaning he has to hit you with it on a straight line. A barrel that large indicates an extremely high muzzle velocity, which also means you'll be dead before you know you've been hit. On the other hand, minimum range is probably around 20 meters."

Holland nodded, understanding. "Meaning we have to get in close. Fast." He gripped his control sticks more tightly, cursing that he didn't have the 303 or the Nirvash at his side. "Alright, I'm going in on point. Matthew, I want you to circle above and give me Intel."

Matthew didn't wait to protest. "Leader, there's two of us and one of him. Don't you think we should tag team him?"

"Not with a turning radius like that. The 606 won't be able to keep up. I want you to watch my back."

"Leader, you don't have to prove anything."

"Holland, don't be stupid," Talho said over the comm.

Ignoring the cries of his comrades, his adopted family, and the woman he loved, Holland threw the 808 in a barrel roll and, firing his boosters, dove towards the enemy KLF.

The ground rushed towards him, the acceleration pushing him into his seat with incredible force. Bellow him the enemy was still moving in circles, coming up to meet him.

Holland dropped his gun sight on him, a green circle falling on the red KLF and flashing, then turning red. The KLF immediately moved out of the way, like he knew his life was being threatened. Obviously his sensors were top-notch.

Holland pulled out his dive and into a spiral, the distance between him and his prey having close to a few hundred yards. The KLF swooped a wide arch around him. Holland fired his boosters again, trying to get in behind him.

The enemy pilot turned hard left, exiting the loop and heading the other way. Holland followed.

Two streaks of green, like lines of paint on a canvas, flowed across the sky and a hundred bright flashes of gunfire dotted the landscape bellow them as the battled raged on the air and on the ground.

"Those are definitely more than black market specs," Talho said in his ears. "Be careful."

Deep black gorges streaked underneath him as he made a wide circle a hundred yards behind his prey. Holland fired the 808's dual laser cannon with a high-pitched whine as the air around the short twin muzzles became superheated. The red KLF jerked left, then right, avoiding his lock, the zoomed back.

Holland pulled hard on his controls, almost turning his board sideways as he turned. As soon as Holland realized that he was over flying the building that was at the center of the assault, his console, which normally displayed communication, targeting, and navigation information began screeching a warning.

The 808 was being targeted.

Before he could react, the intermittent beeping that indicated a possibly enemy lock turned in a single, solid beep. A target lock warning.

Holland cursed, looking up through his canopy to see the enemy KLF was now spiraling above him, lining him up as he tried to break away from the ground lock. A long stream of glowing fire, poured out of the KLF's gun, dozens of rounds in a few short seconds, stubby cylindrical shell casing expelled from the things shoulders just as fast.

Evading quickly, the incoming shells streaked past to Holland's right, carving out a path on the battlefield bellow him, kicking up dust and debris.

"Leader!"

Matthew's warning came as soon the 808's console went red, indicating a missile had been launched in his direction. Holland did a barrel roll and looked bellowing him, spotting the smoking trail of the AAM headed his way. He ignited his boosters, but the missile turned impossibly sharp and followed him, painting a white line across the sky.

Above him the KLF lined him up again. Holland cursed.

And then the looming shape of the 606 eclipsed the morning sun. Holland saw it from less a split second as it just seemed to hang there, then came to a screeching halt, performed a rattling cut-back drop and dove straight down.

Right between the incoming AAM and the 808's rear quarters.

The missile lock warning vanished as the small radar on the tip of the AAM picked up the closer 606 as it interrupted its trajectory and veered off into Matthew's tail, away from Holland.

"Dammit," Holland yelled into him microphone. "I told you—"

"You'd have to be really stupid if you really thought we'd obey such an order," Hilda replied, as Matthew was obviously too busy maneuvering the 606 to do so himself. "This is not up to you alone. We won't let you kill yourself because you feel responsible."

Holland grimaced in anger. "That's not it! I can't—"

"We'll keep the AA fire away from you," Hilda cut him off. "Now go get the bastard."

"Fine," Holland growled. "Don't blame me if you get hurt."

Realizing the pointlessness of making an argument in this dangerous situation Holland simply nodded and fired up his boosters, rising to meet the heavy rapid fire of the enemy KLF's big gun, dodging left and right, cutting the air with his board, leaving exited glowing-green trapars in his wake and firing his own cannons in return.

Bellow him, the 606 fired its counter-measures and juked out of the way.

* * *

Children were crying, their voices rising over the hushed crowd of civilians. The battle outside had been raging furiously for what seemed like hours though it had probably only been minutes. Dominic was sitting by Anemone's side, gently stroking Gulliver's fur. He tried not to pay attention to the fearful faces of their fellow hostages as they huddled together nearby. 

It would be other soon. Holland would see to that. Dominic had to admit that he wasn't quite as worried as he had been before.

Anemone didn't seem to care when he told her. Even the battle didn't seem to have any effect on her. She had not moved from her spot.

She must have gotten used to it, Dominic thought, going into combat all those times and being in danger.

However, as true as that was, something was definitely wrong with her. Dominic didn't want to question her on what was wrong, but he wished she would just tell him. Anemone had a right to be mad at him, he realized. He had failed to get them out of this as he'd promised.

Magdy was now dutifully minding the radio, though she wasn't issuing orders or doing anything, just listening, her expression glum, hands pressing the bulky earphones firmly against her head. Their guard was looking up concerned at the blue sky through the open ceiling, watching the streaks of white and green and blossoming explosions above.

"If you really want to die that much, why don't you go join them?"

Anemone's voice was sharp as always, chastising almost.

The guard turned his eyes towards her at the same time as Dominic, as well as several of the hostages.

"Orders," the young man replied. "Not that I expect that means anything to a brat like you."

Anemone scoffed. For the first time that morning she got up, the ruffled skirt of her white sundress falling down around her knees. She stepped over to the guard before Dominic could prevent her from doing so, not afraid of his weapon.

Dominic scooped up Gulliver and went to stand by her side.

"I don't think your orders are the problem," Anemone said, ignoring Dominic's warning look. "Why would you be the only one felt behind while all your comrades go out to fight?"

"Simon thinks I'm too young," the man replied to Dominic's surprised.

"Please," Anemone laughed shortly. "He thinks you are a coward."

The man frowned gravely. "Don't call me that."

"I called you that before. It didn't seem to bother you then." Anemone clasped her hands behind her back then started twisting the toes of her right foot the ground like she was amused and not at all interested by his protest.

"It's different now … my friends are dying outside." The man seemed about to raise his rifle but thought better of it. Anemone was barely half his weight at best, and as far as he knew just a spoiled young girl in a bad mood. No threat at all.

"Then why don't you join them?" She insisted. "Why don't you help them? It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?"

"I need to obey my orders," the man said with slight hesitation. "It's not about permission. It's about trust. Simon trusts me enough to guard you. So that's my job."

Anemone grinned broadly. "Or maybe you are a coward," she said coldly. "Maybe you know I'm right, and would rather be safe here than out there. Maybe the reason you haven't gone outside is because you know that."

"Shut up!" The man gritted his teeth. "This has nothing to do with bravery! Simon knows I'm brave. He told me to stay because I'm too young."

"You're an idiot." Anemone stepped forward, sticking out her nose at him in a gesture of condescension, her posture teasing. "Simon thinks you are coward too. That is obvious. You know it. I know it. All your comrades know it."

Dominic sighed. He couldn't see what could Anemone possibly want by taunting the man like this. She was just looking for trouble, or perhaps sensing his nervousness at the uncertain fate of his comrades fighting on his behalf. But there was nothing to be gained with this. He reached out and grasped her arm.

"Come on, Anemone," Dominic said.

As soon as he'd uttered the name a flash of recognition crossed the guard's clear eyes as he turned them to meet his. "What did you call her?"

Before Dominic could even think of how badly he'd just screwed up in revealing Anemone's name, the lithe pink-haired girl wriggled out of his grasp.

In a blur of lightning fast movement, she placed one hand around the barrel of the distracted man's rifle and another where the stock met the rest of the frame and using his grip as a fulcrum point swung the weapon up in a violent arc.

The riffle butt smashed into the man's lower jaw with a sickening crunch. His head snapped back. He toppled to the ground in a heap.

"ANEMONE!" Dominic screamed.

She was grinning widely as she towered over the fallen young man, who was now clutching his broken jaw, her eyes narrowed, purple eyes aflame with anger and barely suppressed vile. "Pathetic," she sneered. "Just pathetic."

And she lifted her foot, and still smiling, stomped on the man's head hard, viciously, again and again.

Dominic stood there in shock, sickened by the sound of Anemone's heel impacting flesh and bone as she kicked and stomped as if she had gone completely out of her mind with rage. Gulliver slipped out of his arms unnoticed.

Blood covered the man's face, pouring into the ground. He wasn't moving anymore.

Anemone didn't care. She kept kicking. She kept smiling.

Dominic couldn't take it anymore. Stepping up, he once again grasped her arm. "Anemone, stop."

She whirled around as soon as his fingers closed around her upper arm, and punched him in the face.

Dominic stumbled backwards and fell, holding his bleeding nose, staring disbelieving at the love of his life. And she stared back, her beautiful eyes bristling and shaking as if struggling to understand what she had just done.

Her mouth twisted.

She started to laugh.

That laugh … Dominic had heard it before. When she was strapped to TheEnd, high on the drugs that made her a remorseless killing machine. When she tore through whatever was on her path exactly as she had been intended to do. When she became anything except for a human being.

"A … Anemone …" he stuttered, a tight clamp of fear squeezing his heart.

Anemone just laughed … and then she clutched her head in her hands and fell to her knees, and the laughter became screaming.

Dominic sprang to her side at once, placing his hands soothingly on her bare shoulders, not caring in the slightest if she would punch him again. All his pain had been forgotten.

"Anemone, please," he begged urgently, "tell me what's wrong."

But she didn't even seem to realize he was there. She just screamed, shaking her head violently, tears running down her face.

"Anemone!" Dominic shook her desperately.

"HELP ME!" Anemone screamed, her voice hoarse. "DOMINIC!"

"How?" Dominic asked, barely able to keep his own tears at bay. "HOW? What's wrong? What can I do? Please!"

"I … I …" Anemone raised her head, her incredible eyes staring at him fearfully. Her face twisted into a snarl, shoulders now shaking as if his very touch was causing her pain. She held his gaze as long as she could. A thin line of blood ran from her nose. "I'm sorry, Dominic."

Her eyes rolling back, she went limp in his arms. Her screaming stopped and there was only the echoing noise on battle and the cries of children.

"ANEMONE!" Dominic shook her again to no avail.

A cold chill ran up his spine, a spike of fear and uncertainty. He didn't know what to do—he didn't know what to think. Even worse, he didn't know what he could possibly do to her Anemone, and that left a hurtful emptiness inside he hadn't felt since Warsaw.

Dominic wrapped his arms tightly around her and pulled her towards him. He held her head against his chest, his shirt becoming stained with her blood, Gulliver looking worriedly at them.

"Hey!"

Dominic looked up to find several of the hostages had approached them, angry looks on their faces.

"She's Dewey's brat," one of them declared. "I knew I recognized her from somewhere."

Not thinking about anything besides Anemone's safety, Dominic threw out a hand and picked up the guard's assault rifle, pointing towards his fellow hostages. Like Anemone and him, he knew they were innocents simply caught up in the events of the last day.

Under normal circumstances he wouldn't have thought himself capable of shooting them. But now, with Anemone unconscious on his lap …

Even if it made him a murderer, he would protect her.

"Stay back!" he shouted. "I will shoot you! Trust me, I would do worse to protect this girl!"

They stepped closer.

"Are you kidding?" another hostage asked disbelievingly. "Don't you know who she is? She has to pay for what she did!"

"I lost my wife because of her!" said another.

Sadness and regret were heaving things to bear, but Dominic's concern for Anemone gave him strength. He checked the rifle quickly—the safety was off. "Don't make me kill—"

And then, with the groaning roar of collapsing metal, the roof came crashing down. The screaming--this time from dozens of voices--resumed.

* * *

Holland shook his head to clear it, looking out of the 808's shattered canopy, groaning in pain. He removed his headset, fighting the dull sense of vertigo that made everything around him spin suddenly. It wasn't as bad as he had expected, but not as smooth as he had hoped for either. 

Once the red KLF had managed to get a hold of him, he had made his decision. There was nothing for it. This was what he'd planned from the beginning--sort of. He hadn't counted having to smash his way through another KLF.

The 808 was now laying crumpled on top of the enemy, pinning it down among collapsed beams of metal, concrete and other debris. Only when he looked did he realized just how badly he'd missed the building's open roof, his intended entry point.

"Shit," he cursed.

A quick look at his control panel told him the 808 was still operational. However, in the confided interior space he was more likely to harm the hostages and Dominic and Anemone than help them. Hopefully, his entry would cause enough chaos to allow him the element of surprise.

He opened a side compartment and retrieved a small SMG and several clips of spare ammo. Loading it and checking the safety, Holland kicked the lever to the canopy and it popped open with a hiss.

Expecting an attack to come from anywhere, he climbed carefully out of the cockpit, scanning his surroundings with the machine gun. No attack came. He didn't even see any hostiles aside from the red KLF pinned under his 808.

There was only twisted rubble and …

Frightened people.

"What the hell?"

Nobody had said anything about civilians. There were only supposed to a few hostages, but not these many people. Not women and children and old men.

"Holland!"

Holland turned, recognizing the voice. "Dominic, who are these people? What's been—" he stopped suddenly.

Dominic was holding an unconscious Anemone in his arms, his face and shirt covered in blood, the girl's distinctive pink hair falling straight and curling at the tips just like he remembered.

"Anemone is hurt!" Dominic yelled urgently at the top of his lungs. "Help us!"

* * *

"She's sleeping now." Mischa moved back and rose to her feet, removing the needle from the syringe she'd used to inject the receptacle on Anemone's neck and turning to Dominic. "I won't know more until I've run a full set of tests. And even then … I hate to say it but I'd have to know more about her physiology." 

Dominic nodded. He was sitting besides Anemone's peacefully sleeping form beneath the entrance to the building, his knees drawn up to his chest. Mischa had given the girl a sedative to keep her from waking up violently as she tried to do her best to evaluate her condition.

Around them the battlefield was covered in smoke and the stench of spent gunpowder and death. More than half of the rebels had been killed, but after Simon's KLF had been taken down behind their lines the battle had become useless and a good part of them had retreated into the nearby gorges. Holland's intervention had created general chaos all around. Even the local authorities had a hard time believing they'd won.

There was spent ammunition and materiel all over the place; the ground was gauged out by explosions and mines. The locals had lined up their dead and tended to their wounded while small detachments went around securing the field and pursuing the rebels.

The locals, clad in black body armor and helmets, were also rounding up the civilians and were in the process of taking them away, hopefully to take care of them. Dominic was much too worried about Anemone to be too concerned with their fate. They would be safer wherever they went, he was sure.

Dominic turned his tired gaze back to Anemone. Her face was relaxed, peaceful—the way she always looked when she slept, even if she was in pain. He had failed her … despite everything she had ended up getting hurt.

"Lieutenant?"

Dominic lifted his head, finding Mischa's concerned expression. "Yeah?"

"I'm going to need to know what happened to her before she passed out," she said. "Physically she's fine, as far as I can tell. But there's something else here. Is she on some kind of medication?"

"Not since before Dewey died." Dominic shook his head. "She doesn't even take aspirin. She hates needles."

Mischa nodded, looking again at Anemone. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take her on board the Gekko."

"That's a good idea," said Holland's voice from behind him.

Dominic, already knowing who it was, didn't turn.

Holland came to stand with Mischa; Hilda stood on the doctor's other side. Both of them had the same sullen look. "We'll use the 606 to fly her on board," Holland said. "It's a smooth ride. She'll be comfortable."

"It's my fault," Dominic said, not really listening in his guilt. "I was supposed to protect her."

Holland, Hilda, and Mischa looked at each other, none of them really sure of what to say. Finally, Holland sighed deeply, and said, "No … it's not your fault. No more that it's mine anyway."

"You don't understand …"

"I know how you feel," Holland said somberly. "I know you feel you let her down. But there's really nothing you could have done. Dominic, Mischa can take better care of her on the Gekko than in any hospital. She took care of Eureka. She can take care of Anemone, too."

Dominic sighed. "You don't understand … I was supposed to take care of her. I was supposed to be there for her. Whatever was wrong with her … she couldn't even bring herself to tell me. I would've done anything …"

"So you are just going to sit there and feel sorry for yourself?" Holland interrupted. "You are the one who doesn't understand." He looked around to Mischa and then to Hilda.

Hilda stepped forward. "Dominic, every one of us—every member of Gekkostate—is ready to become Anemone's family. Your family." She offered him a hand. "Lets go. Matthew is waiting for you."

Despite his reluctance, Dominic could not deny the honesty in her voice. He looked questioningly at Holland.

The shaggy haired Ace shook his head. "I'm not good with emotional stuff, but she's right. We all feel that way."

Dominic nodded, fully understanding what they were offering. Rolling onto his knees on the harsh ground, he leaned over Anemone and kissed her gently on the forehead, conscious that they were all watching him, and whispered, "I'll be with you all the way. Forever."

Then he took Hilda's offered hand. Within a minute, Gekkostate had brought a stretcher out of the 606 and carefully laid Anemone lithe, limp form on it, paying special attention to her lolling head. Working as a team, Hilda and Holland carried the stretcher to the waiting LFO parked besides the battered and beat-up 808.

As they walked Dominic noticed the locals were using a crane to lift Simon's downed KLF. "What's going to happen to Simon?"

Holland shrugged gently. "They'll question him," he said. "After that, who knows? Jail if he's lucky. He's a terrorist, so they say. That means they'll probably execute him."

"In other words," Hilda said grimly, "he's just like we used to be. Somehow it doesn't seem fair."

Dominic looked quietly at Anemone on the stretcher, guilt threatening to get the better of him as her peaceful breathing caused her chest to rise and fall lightly, her hands clutched into fists, her lips parted almost like she wanted him to kiss her again in her sleep.

"It's never fair."

* * *

To be continued… 

Notes and references: Um, "Black Friday Rule" is from a song by Flogging Molly. I ended this a little before I originally intended to because it's just been long between updates and I realize I have responsibility to publish this as soon as I can. I also thought it would be more suspenseful this way without knowing what exactly is happened to Anemone and such. I hope not to take so long with chapter 3.

Oh, and in case you haven't figured it out, Ravensbruck was a concentration camp during WW2. Foreboding, I know.


	3. Faraway, So Close!

Eureka Seven: Withdrawal Syndrome

By Rommel

* * *

Three: "Faraway, So Close!"

* * *

The city, like other things that had once held life in them, reeked of decay. The smell penetrated everything, and hung in the air like a heavy, invisible curtain that fell on the abandoned buildings and the dusty ground. It was as if a sudden plague caused the inhabitants to flee; leaving behind their doors and windows open, children's toys still scattered at the doorsteps of family homes, cars lying empty on the roads.

Death--that's what it smelled like, the pink haired girl finally recognized. Like dying hope. Like her name. Everything in the city was just dead.

She had been wandering for ages, not really knowing what she had been looking, but knowing full well that it had been in vain.

She had passed through the door of what looked like some sort of store, stoping and noticing her reflection on a mirror that had been hung on the inside wall and frowned.

She looked distorted somehow—her features sharp and pretty as always but different. Her hoop-skirted dress swaying about her, hanging from her shoulders as lightly as it had always done. For a long time this dress had been her only possession, the only thing she was allowed to have by the man who had made her be nothing more than a weapon.

She groaned in pain, frowning and noticing that she was barefoot for some reason, the concrete feeling harsh on the tender soles of her feet as she walked about.

It felt good in away—feeling anything meant she still had a heart.

But looking at herself …

She felt so odd.

Was this what people felt when they looked at her? Was that all they saw? The distortion and the monster and not the girl underneath? The thing without a brain made only to kill and to live or die according to her creator's whim?

Death … there had been a time when she would have gladly gone to her death for Dewey. Even though she didn't want to die. She would have because she was afraid of the consequences. Living meant fear and hurt, and she didn't want those things anymore.

Death would have been a relief.

But she had still cried when she had gone. She had flown through the coralian crust in tears, blaming herself for all she had done. She had fought not really caring about what was happening, not listening to TheEnd as it had tried to alert her to danger and get her to respond. Or to Eureka as she tried to lift her spirits and comfort her.

She had just cried.

And the killing machine broke and she refused to die or kill for him, choosing instead to live on with the person that fulfilled her heart, who made her happy.

She had screamed desperately for him as she fell through the air, and embraced him, and kissed him. That was the moment she looked back on almost religiously for its radiant warmth. She had dreamed so much of reliving it. Such a thing seemed too good to be true.

The happiest moment of her young, sad life.

Anemone sighed at her reflection, turning her head away in disgust and moved on. The smell of death followed her, but it didn't bother her, or if it did, she didn't seem to care.

Something was burning in the distance; she could see smoke rising into the colorless sky. The street was hot under her feet, the sun touched her exposed skin, but it didn't feel righ… it felt so much like how she had begun to feel Dominic's embrace, as if it had somehow lost its comforting warmth.

So she walked, not headed anywhere. Devastation was all around her—these people were gone, their lives shattered, and for what?

She recognized some of the building—wasted vignettes of her lost childhood. She walked by the houses without looking, quickening her pace as if hoping to leave her suffering being. Stopping meant letting it all catch up with her, so she kept going, yet every step felt heavier than the last.

Eventually, she couldn't exactly tell when, she came to the end of a street where the pavement came to a dead end. The houses on either side of her were demolished, leaving only broken beams of wood and overgrown grass to fill the lots. The whole neighborhood seemed to have been bombed out.

She caught a glimpse of something ...

There was a figure beside the house to her left, standing among the rubble. She couldn't see who it was, but her heart suddenly felt sick of the loneliness and carefully she made her way towards it.

And among the shadows of the ruins she saw ... a man.

But not really a man—a straw man.

"Scarecrow," Anemone whispered to herself, gazing at the thing in disgust. Shaped like a human, clothed in worn tattered rags, black buttons for eyes, a plastic, wide and fake smile drawn crudely on it… filled with nothing.

She stepped closer, unable to heed the warning calls that echoed in the back of her mind, the dry dead grass crunching under her feet, the black eyes seeming to follow her every movement intently, staring right through her. Black eyes—so different from her own purple ones and yet so similarly empty. Filled with nothing, just like she felt.

The mind of the scarecrow ... the soul ... the heart ... all faraway, yet so close.

And then, she heard a voice from behind her. "My sweet little Anemone ..."

Anemone froze. She knew that voice very well; she feared and dreaded it. She seemed to spend all of her life trying to please it and avoid the ultimate fate she knew was reserved for broken things.

Her heart seemed to stop, the only thing that up until now had reminded her she was still alive. She was really empty now.

Slowly, Anemone turned her head to look over her shoulder, and standing there at the edge of the patch of grass, clad in his pristine white uniform was someone she knew she could never get away from.

And she had been stupid enough for somehow thinking she could.

"You can't..." Anemone choked on the words, tears beginning to gather in her eyes. She brought her hands up against her chest protectively, shaking, terrified, embracing herself. "You can't..."

"I forget..." Dewey Novak repeated. The brim of his white cap hid his eyes. The chiseled featured of his face were locked into a hard, unmoving mask. "Isn't that what I used to call you?"

"You ... you ... are dead," Anemone muttered, feeling as if the words themselves were slowly chipping away at every bit of her sanity. Tears were now running down her cheeks.

Dewey took a step into the grass. "You are my creation. As long as you live, I can't die."

"Stay away from me!" Anemone bellowed, moving back until she was cowering besides the scarecrow, shaking her head desperately. "Stay away!"

He did stop, but only when he was so close to her that she had to look up at him and it seemed as if he was as tall as a bronze statue. "And what would you do all alone? Would you ask for forgiveness?"

Anemone was still shaking her head, crying almost hysterically but in silence, the only sounds coming form her where choked sobs and whines, her knees buckling and dropping her to the ground.

"What would you do?" Dewey's voice remained emotionless, as if he were completely uncaring that it was destroying her world. "Would you ask him to love you?"

Anemone shook her head, making no reply as her thoughts and emotions unraveled leaving only pain and despair in their wake. All the happy things she'd done with Dominic, the things she had once longed for, gave her no comfort. She had been lying to herself; lying to him. Fake happiness was was just as bad as deep sorrow.

Her heart a still lump, there was nothing in her whatsoever. Like the scarecrow looming above her, she was filled with nothing.

"Even alone ... they would all still hate you."

Anemone tried not to look up anymore, trapped as she was between Dewey and the scarecrow, but she kept crying. It was all she had been reduced to.

Suddenly she missed her parents so terribly it sent a sharp spike of pain through her whole small body. She missed Dominic too. She wanted nothing more than to see them all again and feel that warmth that meant she was loved.

"Even alone ... you would still hate yourself."

The words cut her deeply, far more painfully than anything she'd gone through in battle, opening up wounds that had never healed because she had never moved on.

"You would still be in pain."

Dewey stepped the final distance to her in two strides, but she was far to overwhelmed to even scream at him to get away. His presence so close felt asphyxiating, like she had been locked into a coffin and was simply waiting to run out of air. He reached out a hand and placed it under chin, moving it up, bringing her head up to look at him.

Tearful, bloodshot purple eyes—eyes that he had given her—stared at him in utter, wide open horror, one of her hands clutching at her chest and the other at the ground.

"You would still be mine."

With a flick of his hand he produced a cross-shaped injector similar to those she had always used or allowed to be used on her. The long needle caught the light and produced a brilliant glare that burned itself in the back of her mind.

And at that moment all Anemone could do was think of him—the someone she had always treated so badly but who had ended falling in love with her regardless.

"Please, help me..."

Dewey held her head steady, bringing up the needle and quickly inserting it into the small receptor bellow her left ear, and with a hiss the injector drained its cocktail of drugs into her head, flooding out all sensations and feelings in a cold wave of remorseless, battle ready hatred.

The scarecrow's black eyes were still staring at her, still filled with nothing.

"Dominic ... help ... me..."

Had she been but a little bit stronger she might have been able to fight as her mind—the real, damaged girl she was—hopelessly slipped away. But Anemone knew she wasn't strong, she had never been. And so she gave up.

Her slender form relaxed, her tears stopped. As she slipped into Dewey's waiting arms in a quiet stupor Anemone realized the warmth of his embrace felt like everything that was missing from her life.

"Dominic …"

* * *

"You are going to have to ask her yourself."

As Dominic watched the houses go by from the back seat of Gekkostate's Type R606, Mischa's words rolled around hauntingly in his head. They were the only answer he had gotten from her when he asked why Anemone would do something like this to herself after it had been so hard to kick her old medication.

She was right, of course, only Anemone would know, and asking anyone else would simply lead to supposition and doubt, none of which would solve anything.

The toxicology had confirmed what Dominic had feared all along; there were traces of something—possibly some kind of stimulant agent—in Anemone's bloodstream. Mischa couldn't identify what it was precisely, but judging by the following quantitative testing she was able to determine that whatever it was, it had such a consistent presence in her system that she must have either been taken it recently or haven been taking it consistently over a period of time.

Neither option sat well with him. His first and most obvious concern was that she had overdosed on the same sort of medication she had spent a lot of her life using and only recently had managed to discard. That would explain why Mischa couldn't identify it—it was probably a compound largely kept secret by the military and even Dominic didn't know what was in it.

But something wasn't right. Anemone had used that drug many times before and while the violent side effects and the bloodlust were unmistakable, they had never before driven her completely berserker. She always retained a little of her personality.

And if she had been using it recently, Dominic would have noticed a change in her behavior. They lived together in a one-room apartment—he would have had to. He might be somewhat naïve, but he wasn't clueless.

Whatever she had taken, he felt responsible. He had never bothered to have anyone check to see if the medicine was addictive—he was sure now it was—and he had never thought it would be an issue. Anemone had always seemed like the sort of girl who, while quirky at times, would let him know when something was not right. He thought he had built enough of a close relationship with her that if anything came up were she felt she needed some medical care she would tell him.

He thought she would trust him like he trusted her. So why then had she not trusted him and told him something was wrong?

Did she think he would just dump her if he found out she was back to her old ways? That he would reject her?

It could be. Anemone had spent her life isolated from people. Dominic was the first one who actually treated her like a person. It was reasonable that she would be afraid of being abandoned again, but she couldn't possibly think he was that heartless.

Or maybe she did. Maybe she was afraid of him like she was afraid of Dewey; maybe she didn't want to disappoint him like she hadn't wanted to disappointed Dewey; maybe she though he wanted her to live a lie like Dewey had.

The questions ate away at him like acid, so much so that Mischa had to threaten to sedate him as well so he would part from Anemone's bedside and try to get some sleep. Holland had been nice enough to set up a cot for him in the infirmary, but there was no way Dominic could actually manage sleep. He had curled up on the cot with Gulliver and stared at his pink-haired lover wishing she would wake up so he could tell how sorry he was.

He had stared and berated himself, blaming everything on him—them being taken hostage, Anemone's condition, his role in making her who she was, her lack of trust in him. Everything. It was his fault.

Dominic couldn't recall if he had actually slept any. At some point his mind seemed to just slip away, but for all real purposes it was the second sleepless night in a row. It wasn't until this morning while climbing into the 606, after Mischa had suggested he go back to the apartment he shared with Anemone to look for whatever she might be using, that he realized how tired he was.

And he was tired, probably on the edge of exhaustion; physically from the ordeal and uncertainty of being taken hostage and finding himself in the middle of an all out assault, and emotionally from Anemone's collapse. His senses were dulled; the whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Dominic took his eyes away from the glass canopy and turned his head to look around to the young girl sitting with him.

Gidget had volunteered to come with him and Matthew in the 606, though he suspected that more to do with wanting to get out of the Gekko and sightsee than anything else. The entire crew had seemed very concerned for Anemone, even despite the fact that she was some they barely knew and who had given them a lot of trouble and had taken down both the Nirvash and Holland in separate occasions.

He envied Renton for having found a family like this, like he knew Anemone envied Eureka. The two of them, on the other hand, only had each other. And even that was clearly not the comforting thing Dominic had thought all along it was.

"There's our intersection," Matthew called him from the front seat.

Dominic didn't bother looking. He sucked with directions anyway.

In vehicle mode, the 606 took up most of the pavement as it turned into the new street but thanks to its skilled pilot they had managed to keep off the sidewalks so far, and from potentially hurting anyone. Luckily, there were very few other vehicles on the road. Dominic had told Matthew that most people in the city used the mass transit system, which had probably played a major role in the afro-haired pilot deciding to bring the LFO.

A member of Gekkostate would be mobbed by fans in the trams.

Discretion, however, didn't prevent Matthew from blaring a loud fast moving beat from the 606's exterior speakers, or keep away the astonished stares of everyone the passed. Most of them, Dominic guessed, had never seen an LFO in their lives.

The music didn't bother him. Anemone had a taste for music too, so he had gotten used to all kinds of weird rhythms. And it kept exhaustion from overtaking him.

Besides him Gidget had kept up a constant stream of "oohs" and "aahs" as the elaborate stone facades of the buildings rolled along; block by block and street by street, staring wide eyed with the sort of wonderment found only in the very young.

He caught himself at that thought. It seemed impossible that she was only younger than him by a few years and perhaps only younger than Anemone by months.

She was just a young girl, happy and care free, surrounded by people who would all give their own lives to protect her. The kind of girl Anemone should have been; the kind of girl he had wanted her to be…

The kind of girl she had earned the right to be, and not ... what she was.

He could not remember the last time Anemone had carried the same wondrous look in her own eyes. Two days ago she had been her usual bright upbeat self, but if Mischa was correct that meant she had been hiding something even then. It had all been an act.

Gidget suddenly turned her head and her eyes met Dominic's. He quickly took his gaze away, slightly embarrassed. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to stare."

"It's okay," Gidget replied. "You don't have to apologize for that. I know you must have a lot on your mind."

Everyone from Gekkostate was really being so nice to both Anemone and himself—it was enough to make him regret he had ever worked for Dewey, if nothing else did. Anemone would probably feel the same way.

Probably.

Finally the 606 pulled up in front of a three-story building with several balconies adorning the upper two floors and large windows with wooden shutters on either side. The door was framed in an elaborated metal design, which curved into three spirals above the lintel. The building itself was just a stone block, each floor painted a different shade of pastel red, a color meant to catch the eyes, contrasting with the greens and yellows of the neighboring structures.

"This is the place, right?" Matthew asked from the front seat, turning to look at Dominic over his shoulder.

"Yeah," Dominic said.

Matthew dropped his hand on the canopy release lever, causing the reinforced glass bubble to slide back. "I'll stay with the vehicle—don't wanna be getting any parking tickets, you know. Holland would be pissed. You two go on ahead and do what you gotta do."

"Don't get in trouble with law enforcement," Dominic said, though he knew he was just repeating what Holland had said. "Who knows what they'd do at this point."

As he climbed off the 606, Gidget following in behind him, a small crowd had begun to gather around the very conspicuous LFO. Dominic knew it was also why they had brought the 606. It would become the center of attention wherever it went in the city, hopefully allowing Dominic and Gidget to slide away quietly from whatever tail the locals had put on them, as Holland was convinced they would.

Given what Simon had told him, Dominic didn't think it was an unnecessary precaution.

"So, you really think these guys are trouble?" Gidget asked innocently as they walked up the front steps and through the door.

"We can't trust them, that's about all I know."

"If that's the case though, why would they let you stay here?"

Dominic didn't think the answer mattered so he kept quiet; Gidget gave him a pout of annoyance.

Buildings this small didn't tend to have elevators, so the two of them walked up the stairs to the top floor. Dominic had never minded, but Anemone had complained endlessly about it, saying it was a waste she had to get sweaty and tired just getting home. Several times she had made him carry her piggy-back style. Good thing she was so lithe or there was no way he would have been able to.

As put-upon as he was feeling, that memory bought a little smile to Dominic's face.

Gidget didn't seem to notice it; she was too busy talking and asking questions he had no answer for almost as if trying to avoid uncomfortable dead silence with someone she hardly knew.

By the time they made it to the narrow hallway that led down to a bank of doors on either side, Dominic could feel his knees creaking from fatigue. He led Gidget to the farthest door on the right, fetched the keys from his trouser pocket, and turned the lock on the doorknob.

"Whoa," Gidget exclaimed. "It's a mess."

The apartment was small, only a single room with a small bed hardly ample enough to accommodate two people, a seldom-used kitchen located in a corner, and a door leading to a bathroom. And as Gidget had pointed out it was not exactly neat. There were dirty clothes everywhere, and used food containers, wrappers, stacks of paper, several stuffed animals, and just about everything else that normal living could accumulate.

At first Dominic had tried to keep the place clean, but it soon became clear it was a battle he could not win. Anemone didn't care at all, and no matter how many times he tried to correct her, she would just throw anything wherever she liked. She had gotten used to being cared for hand and foot while she was the pilot of TheEnd—as far as she was concerned that hadn't changed.

Her bad habits had started to rub off on Dominic rather quickly.

Following him into the apartment, Gidget looked around in disbelieve. "I mean, seriously, it's like a natural disaster area."

"Sometimes I think Anemone is a natural disaster," Dominic said, stooping down to pick up a stuffed bunny with long, flapping ears and setting it on the dresser top. "She doesn't seem to want to take care of anything, even the stuff we spend all the money on. My money because she's never had a job—don't even think she knows what a job is."

He hadn't really meant to be funny, but Gidget still giggled. "Pretty girls like us don't need to work to get what we want."

"Yeah, that's true." Dominic sighed, slightly amused by the comment. He then swept a hand across the room. "Alright, we need to go through this mess. Easier said than done, I know."

"Right," she said happily. "Where do you wanna start?"

"I don't know. If you were hiding something you wanted no one to find, were would you hide it?"

Gidget pointed behind him. "Underwear drawer."

Dominic pulled out the drawer and turned it upside down, spilling its intimate contents unceremoniously on the carpet. Had he been with another male he would have thought twice about doing that, but as it was he figured it was nothing Gidget had not seen before.

He dropped to his knees with a groan and went through the small pile of assorted underwear quickly. When that didn't offer any results, he set the drawer aside and turned back to Gidget.

"There's no point in being careful," he said, speaking in short, precise orders, years of military training making it become like a second nature. "You go over the dresser and that corner over there with the stereo. I'll take the closet and the rest of the boxes on this side of the room. I don't really know what we are looking for; pills, needles probably, empty medicine bottles."

Gidget nodded. "I'll keep my eyes open."

With that, they started looking. Leaving Gidget to deal with the dresser, Dominic began going through some of the boxes that were stacked on the corner. Before, when they had originally moved in, there had been no furniture so these boxes had come in handy, and afterwards they had just been used for general storage; they were now full of magazines, papers, and mail—most of which was addressed to the apartment's previous occupants.

They went over the place as quickly as possibly while still being thorough. Gidget was not just searching through the drawers but actually pulling everything out; Dominic slid open the closet's accordion-style door, and stopped.

One of the few things hanging there was the black jacket of his Federation uniform. It was among the reminders he could not bring himself to throw away, for the same reason he could not accept the full discharge he'd been offered.

None of the horrible things he'd done had been executed while wearing that uniform. He shared those same colors with a lot of people who'd died doing what they believed to be right thing, and in the end it was the uniform he'd chosen to wear when he'd defected to Gekkostate. It represented his sense of duty, to the Federation, to himself, and to Anemone.

Slowly, he took the jacket from its hanger, its clean and crisp fabric reminding him of how tired and grimy he felt. Two days without sleep or a proper meal or a shower. Looking back in the closet he spotted his gray breeched trousers, and right beneath them the tall, patent leather knee high boots required for that uniform.

He had always thought they seemed like part of an era long gone, when officers rode horses into battle instead of humanoid suits of armor.  
The whole uniform seemed to have been designed with intimidation in mind, as if seeking to elevate its wearer to a higher position of authority just by the power of the sharp military cut and severe colors.

But it was also the sort of uniform that could be worn with pride whether you were a mere Lieutenant or a high-ranking General. A mark to symbolize that to serve the Federation was to serve humanity.

Or that was the idea … before Dewey had corrupted the Federation into what amounted to his own personal secret police. But a lot of good, noble people still wore the uniform. They had been used and lied to as well, just like Dominic, but that didn't take away from the fact that if need be they were willing to give their lives to protect others.

And so he could keep and wear the uniform without feeling guilty—it burdened him with the weight of the past, and strengthened him with the promise of the future.

"Hey."

Dominic heard Gidget's voice from somewhere outside his thoughts and snapped back to reality. He turned to her. "Uh?"

"You know, if you want to change, I can probably finish in here by myself," she said. "You look like you need a shower too."

He ran a hand across his black hair. "Do I really look that bad?"

"Worse," Gidet said. "You haven't done anything but worry for days, have you? I can tell. I can see it in your face. It's seen that look on Holland before, and more than once on Renton."

"At least I'm in good company."

Gidget shook her head. "That's not a good thing. For a while we all kind of thought Renton was loosing his mind. Then it'll just make everything worse. You are gonna crash if you keep pushing yourself, and then you won't be able to help Anemone at all."

Dominic couldn't argue with that. He really did feel as bad as Gidget said he looked. There was no chance he could take care of Anemone if he could even take care of himself. And Anemone needed to be taken care of.

"Yeah, I guess you are right," he admitted. "There's just not a whole lot I can do about it."

"Sure there is. Go get cleaned up," Gidget repeated more urgently. "You don't want the kids calling you stinky or something."

Strangely, Dominic didn't get the sense that she was forcing the lightheartedness in her voice, or her enthusiastic manner. She may have been too young to really understand any of it, but he didn't hold that against her. Far from it, he envied her.

Dominic wondered briefly if Anemone would be more like Gidget if her life had only just turned out less awful.

If he had tried to save her sooner.

* * *

"What's the password?" the female voice on the other side of the door asked. "You know the rules, man. No password, no entry, comprende?"

Art grunted something, holding his injured arm closer to his massive, muscular body. He figured there was probably at least one machine gun aimed right at him from the other side, maybe more than one if things were as bad as he assumed. The 7.62mm rounds would go through the wooden panel and him without even slowing down.

"Screw you, Tomiko," he balked in his unmistakable deep drawl. "You know perfectly well there is no password. Only an idiot would do that, and Simon is not an idiot."

There was a pause on the other side. Then, with a loud racket, he heard deadbolts and chain locks being undone, and after another short pause, the door opened slightly. Art caught sight of the clear green eyes on the other side and made an effort to smile.

The older woman recognized him instantly and swung open the door, her face distraught. "I'm sorry," she said, coming over to him. "You are hurt."

Art ignored her concern, noticing he had been right and there was someone standing there holding an assault riffle. "Forget that. Where's Madgy?"

"Inside. She came in last night," Tomiko said as she moved aside to let him through, as did the riffle man. "Some other guys have been coming through since daybreak, but not as many as I thought. Magdy filled me in. Simon's not coming." Her voice sounded sorrowful as she said that last part. "The Sonderkommando took him to the tower."

Art could understand; he had heard through their hijacked radio set while skulking around waiting for some of the mess to die down..

"I mean to do something about that," he said and stepped inside the small apartment. "I just need to figure out the finer details."

As he expected, the place was crowded, and not just from the surviving soldiers that had been with him and Simon earlier in the day. He recognized some faces, but many more that were unknown—new comrades answering the call. This apartment was the designated staging area for the entire neighborhood. He hadn't wanted to go anywhere else, both because he knew Tomiko was trustworthy, and because this was where he was supposed to meet Magdy.

Several of the soldiers had already prepared themselves, donning body armor and fatigues, but those who had seen fighting were lying down, stripped almost to their underwear, eating and drinking, replenishing their strength… and of course, tending to their wounds.

It was a good turnout, better than was to be hoped for, especially considering the fact that Gekkostate had kicked their ass. A couple of them still had copies of Ray-Out lying about, either not having heard the news or still in denial.

Because the fact was Gekkostate were collaborators. As hard as it may be to accept it, they were the enemy now. Holland Novak himself had taken down Simon.

How could they have been so wrong about Holland?

He noticed there was tall dark-skinned man standing by one of the open windows, keeping a lookout. He recognized those dreadlocks anywhere. Like Tomiko he was someone Art could trust.

The man noticed him as well and nodded in his direction.

"In there. She wasn't feeling very well." Tomiko, who had promptly locked the door behind him, pointed in the direction of the bedroom. "I'll get some bandages." She then gestured to his shoulder. "How is it?"

"Took a fall," he said, feeling rather stupid. "I popped it back in, but it still hurts."

Tomiko frowned in thought. Her features lined with the sort of wrinkles only the constant worries of motherhood could sculpt, her long back hair tied in a bun. "I'm no doctor, but you probably did it wrong."

"Wouldn't be the first time," he said absently as he walked over to the bedroom door. "It doesn't feel as bad as getting shot."

"Wouldn't know. I've never been shot."

"It stings," Art said facetiously. "Just a little."

Magdy was lying on the bed, an arm draped across her eyes. Art thought she might be asleep and realized it was probably better to let her; he was a soldier and a warrior, she wasn't. That she had made it out of there alive was by itself a miracle.

And that was why he didn't want to go. Why he wouldn't go.

Because he had been so afraid that he'd never get a chance to see her again, and tell her what he suspected she already knew …

He sat on the edge of the bed slowly, not wanting to disturb her with his heavy presence, but as soon as he felt the mattress sinking under him Magdy dropped her arm by her side and it became clear she was wide awake.

"Art!" With a kind of exuberant energy she had no right to feel in the gloomy situation they found themselves in, Magdy lunged forward and hugged him tightly.

His arm hurt like crazy, but she didn't need to know that. He said nothing, just returning he gesture as best he could. Her head pressed against his much bulkier frame, he thought he heard her sobbing.

When she finally pulled away, she looked up at him, eyes brimming on the verge of full-blown tears. "I thought you were..." She trailed off as if the words were simply too difficult to utter and became stuck in her throat, then changed topics altogether. "They took Simon."

"I know." Art nodded, for once completely at a loss for what to say; Simon would know exactly what to do. He would comfort them with his kindness, and reassure them with their leadership.

As long as Simon was with them there was no doubt about ultimate victory, but now … he might already be dead for all they knew.

No—they wouldn't kill Simon, not until they dug up everything he knew, and he wouldn't break easily or quickly, Art was sure of that, no matter what they did to him. Torture would take time, especially on someone as stout as their leader, and that was the only advantage they had now.

Simon would buy them the time they needed even through his suffering; they could not squander that. And Art had no intention too.

"What do we do now?" Magdy seemed scared when she asked. Somehow, he got the impression that she might be more frightened of him not having an answer than whatever the answer was.

"We carry on," he said vaguely, not sure he wanted to give away what he was thinking, "that's what Simon would do."

To her credit, Magdy seemed ready to ask for details. But as soon as Art had said that Tomiko showed up at the door, holding a thick roll of bandages and a stern look on her face.

"You aren't carrying anything until you get that shoulder fixed." She sat on the bed behind Art, setting down the bandages, getting an odd look from both him and Magdy. "Lift your arm so I can take your vest off."

"I thought you said you weren't a doctor," Art protested, twisting around to look at the older woman.

"I'm a mother of four." Tomiko held up four fingers to make her point. "I know what sort of scrapes you boys get into. And I don't need a medical degree to tell me how to fix you. Now lift, both of them if you can."

Art gave Magdy a strangely sorrowful glance, one which she could not bring herself to return. Nobody really knew if Tomiko still was the mother of four because two of them had been picked up during one of the more recent raids and the other too were stationed in a cell far to the west, as far away from the place as possible to diminish the risk of being sniffed out. They weren't charged they never were; it was cheaper to just send them to the camps with the refugees.

Either that or be shot in the head.

The fact that this place was still safe, however, didn't bode well for them—it meant one of two things: the brothers had either not been questioned severely enough or they had and were now among other countless unnamed casualties.

"Why do I always let women boss me around?" Art joked to alleviate the mood, lifting both his arms and wincing in pain.

"Because deep down you are just a heavily armed Teddy Bear," Magdy said joining Tomiko as she began undoing the straps of his bullet-proof vest.

"So what happens next?" Tomiko asked as she worked the straps.

Art grumbled. "Why do people keep asking that?"

"Hope."

Art thought about that. Actually, he had been thinking about what to do for a long time, ever since he'd dove out of the way of the two LFO's smashing into that roof, and saying what he thought was not as difficult as it have been otherwise. "We need to get Simon."

Magdy gasped, but Tomiko didn't react at all.

Art let that sink in before continuing. "And I have a plan for how to do that. It's a modification to Simon's plan, but I think it will work. In essence, the goal in the same: get into the tower. We knew it had to come to that eventually."

"You won't be able to just knock," Tomiko said. "And Simon didn't actually have a plan to get IN the tower."

"Yeah, I know. That's the tricky part."

Finally, the vest came off rather gingerly as both women did their best to keep from causing him unnecessary pain, revealing the camouflage-patterned shirt he wore underneath. Magdy laid it aside on the bed, which caused Art to focus briefly on her creamy thigh, while Tomiko began inspecting his exposed shoulder, pressing her fingers here and there trying to trace exactly where the joint had become dislocated.

"So are you going to tell us about this?" Magdy said, fidgeting slightly as if she expected to hear some long delayed bad news. "Or you think you can storm the place by yourself?"

"If I had an LFO," Art sighed heavily, and not just because Tomiko's probing was hurting him. "We need to hack the military network, just as Simon wanted," he said, "and send out the signal. It should just be a matter of timing after that."

The expression of horror on Magdy's face was what he didn't want to see, but at the same time what he knew it could be her only reaction. For all she had seen—and all she had seen them do—she was still that young girl Simon had saved, still so innocent despite everything.

Perhaps that was why he had fallen for her; in a life filled with death, she was the closest link he had to happiness.

Tomiko nodded quietly. "I had a bad feeling you'd say that."

"Wait," Magdy jumped in hurriedly. "You know what will happen. Even with all the weapons we've smuggled in, the people in the camps would never be able to last long."

Art shook his head, aware how horrible what he was about to say would sound. "They won't have to. Just long enough."

"That's a pretty big sacrifice to ask of a lot of people." Tomiko seemed to have made up her mind regarding his arm, so she placed a hand firmly on the trapezium muscle from his injured shoulder before turning to Magdy. "I'm going to hold him. You need to give his arm a pull back into place."

"But—"

"He's in enough pain as it is," Tomiko cut her off. "This won't hurt him any more than he already is."

Hardly convinced by that, Magdy hesitantly took his arm by the wrist.

"When I say so, you pull once," Tomiko said, and Art could feel tightening her grip. "Do it as hard as you can."

Magdy nodded; Art gritted his teeth and steeled himself for the spike of pain.

"Pull!"

It wasn't so bad, just a soft popping noise and a sharp pain which he managed to suppress with a grunt. The look on Magdy's face, however, was as if she thought he'd just been shot. She hugged him again.

This time it didn't hurt.

"Anyway, are you sure about this?" Tomiko said, moving back a little to give them more space but reaching for the bandages—his arm would have to be immobilized for a while. "Like I said, you are asking a lot."

"I know. And I wouldn't ask it unless absolutely necessary, as I believe it is. We can't afford to wait. If they break Simon … we are all dead."

"But we knew that was a possibility when we signed up." Magdy stirred in his embrace, then, placing her small hands on his chest, pushed herself away just far enough to look up into his eyes. "We took a risk and made a choice. Most of the people in the camps are innocents caught in the middle. They are part of what we are fighting for. We can't choose for them."

The bedroom was awfully quiet for a few moments, the air heavy with the decision they were making.

Then Art spoke, saying, "Can we choose to let them kill Simon? We all know people in the camps—it's not an easy decision. But it is a necessary one." He gestured towards the bandage. "And forget about that—I need both my arms to fight. The pain won't bother me; the lack of mobility will."

Tomiko set the roll aside without bothering to argue. "It isn't so much the decision itself that bothers me," she said instead, "but the fact that even if we were to survive we'd have to live with it. And doing nothing means Simon …"

"No. After what Simon has done for all of us … we can't leave him. Everyone will understand," Art said.

Magdy said nothing. She nodded her head ever so slightly, carefully, and dropped her gaze almost as if ashamed of what she was agreeing to.

"All right, we need to figure this out in detail if we're gonna do it." Tomiko's voice was now back her usual stern tone, giving out a colder impression than the motherly voice she had used before. "Screwing up is not an option. And we need to figure out what to do about Gekkostate."

* * *

Holland stretched himself out on the couch and clicked through the channels on the TV. It didn't really matter what was on, he just needed something to distract his attention—he did notice, however, that there was no word of the government attack on civilians from any of the news channels, only that major terrorist leaders had been captured. The lounge inside the Gekko was empty, but even if it hadn't been he'd have no problem in relaxing in front of the crew. He kicked off his boots and propped up his feet on the armrest.

Then, he heard a very familiar voice. "Nothing like being home, is there?"

Holland turned his head to look as Talho came into the lounge. As usual, she wore her form fitting jumpsuit, her short black hair swaying over her shoulders as she walked. He loved that outfit.

"I don't want to argue," Holland said tiredly. He didn't want the accusations that would only heighten the guilt he already felt. "Please."

Talho stopped a few feet from the couch, seemed to hesitate, then sighed heavily. "I don't want to argue either," she said. "But I have to know … I have to know why."

Holland pushed up into a sitting position, swinging his feet to the carpeted floor. For once, the self-assured SOF ace seemed uncertain. "Why … what?"

"Holland," Talho started. "I understand how you feel. You want to be responsible. You feel that it's up to you to make things right. And I know it's because of your brother. There's nothing wrong with that. But you don't have to do things this way."

Holland frowned. "What way?"

"By yourself," Talho said, sounding slightly annoyed.

Holland just looked at her. He knew her hard face merely hid her real emotions. She had a right to feel the way she did. More importantly, Holland had no right to argue her point. None whatsoever.

She did not misunderstand his silence for sheepishness. Holland spoke his mind, but only when he was thinking of something worth saying. His silence meant she had disarmed him.

"You don't have to bear this burden alone," she continued, the resolve in her words filling the void Holland felt inside. "I won't let you."

This was about what he'd done yesterday—going into combat and ordering Matthew and Hilda to hold back. Looking back on it, it had been stupid to expect they'd follow such an order. But if something were to happen to them …

"Talho, this isn't their fight," he said finally, very softly. "If something were to happen to them ..."

"And if something were to happen to you?" Talho retorted instantly.

"I can take the risks."

"That's a load of crap," she replied harshly. "Your fight is our fight. You go into danger, we go into danger. I know you don't want anyone to get hurt. I know you want to protect us. But, Holland, it's bad enough to put yourself in danger. To do it alone is just stupid. And you are not a stupid man."

Holland shook his head. "I'm very stupid."

Talho groaned her exasperation. "Childish? Yeah. Lazy? Sometimes. A total slob? Sure." She was actually counting his flaws on her fingers, then stopped. "But you are not stupid."

"I couldn't stop Dewey," Holland said. "He was smarter than me. In the end, I couldn't even protect Eureka—Renton did that."

"So you want to prove something?" Talho said. "Prove what? That you deserve to be happy?"

He didn't know how to answer that. "No, I …"

"Holland, why do you fly?"

He said nothing, the words caught in his throat. His eyes were locked to hers. He hoped she could see the conflict in him, all the things he wanted to say but couldn't find the voice to.

Slowly, Talho sat down on the couch next to him. "I'll tell you why I think you fly." She took his hand in hers. "No, I'll tell you why I know you fly." And she pressed his hand to her stomach.

"Talho …"

"I was wrong to be angry with you because you wanted to be out there. That's who you are, and I have to accept that. Putting ourselves in danger is the only way the make the world better. But don't refuse the help of those who more than anything want to help you." Talho leaned her head gently against his shoulder. "Don't fly alone, Holland."

Holland felt his mind soar—he was lifting above the clouds in his board, above all earthly concerns. And Talho was lifting right next to him.

He was about to finally say something when Mischa hurried into the lounge. She looked concerned.

* * *

Freshly showered and clad in a clean uniform, Dominic stepped in front of the mirror and looked at himself. The hot shower had helped, but the young face reflected in the shinny surface did not seem to correspond to the way he felt inside. He sighed, holding out his arm and wrapped the red handkerchief around his left biceps. Like the red badges on his collars and the cuffs of his jacket, it stood out starkly against the black background.

Higher ranks usually wore red scarves or ascots, but his junior rank did not entitle him to that. It didn't bother him now quite as much as it had in the past, when he had loathed the contempt with which the higher up treated him because of his age. The same way he'd treated then Captain Jurgens when Dewey made him his intelligence officer.

His eyes dropped almost as if embarrassed. The bathroom, like the rest of the apartment was messy, shampoo bottles and used towels and lotions and soaps lay thrown about everywhere. The sink was set on a wooden cabinet that extended into a counter and was crammed full of Anemone's stuff.

He noticed casually how most of the bottles were either purple or pink. And, looking over the forest of products, Dominic noticed the small metallic silver make-up box.

Dominic frowned; Anemone, as high-strung and vain as she could be seldom wore any make-up. Her eyes were already amazing enough without the need for liner or eye shadow or anything like that, her lips inviting enough without lipstick.

Why would Anemone keep make-up if she was never gonna use it?

A hard, cold feeling touched the inside of Dominic's chest and spread to his stomach. There wasn't a lot of room for privacy when you lived so close to someone else, but he realized that in order to hide something from him, Anemone would have to do so in a place where would never have any reason to go looking. Her underwear drawer definitely didn't qualify.

But her make-up box…

Dominic reached out a hand a picked the small box from the counter. It was cold to the touch … and heavy.

He opened it, and saw what had feared to find all along.

It was an injector similar to those he had used on her many times before, shaped like a cross with a receptacle for one of the various glass vials containing the drugs on opposite end from the needle, where it would snap into place. It was a field devise, requiring little knowledge or preparation, easy to use in a pinch.

Dominic didn't recognize the names of any of the substances in the dozen vials—he had never known the name of the original medicine anyway—but there were different names. The color also seemed darker in some than in others.

Anemone had been using a whole cocktail of drugs.

"Why were you doing this to yourself?" he asked sadly, the words actually hurting. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"

Neither the empty bathroom nor his reflection had an answer for him.

Dominic sighed, then closed the make-up box and tucked it under his arm as he exited the bathroom. Gidget was standing around, having finished turning the place upside-down and now had a backpack she had evidently found slung over one of her slender shoulders.

"What's that?" Dominic asked, nodding towards the backpack.

Gidget shrugged. "I thought Anemone might like a change of clothes as well. We have lots of stuff she could wear on the Gekko, but there's nothing like your own things, right?"

He pressed a hand consciously against the front of his uniform.

"What's in the little box?" Gidget asked, pointing.

Dominic held it out and she took it and opened it. Her open features fell as she stared at the content, then she pressed her lips together, her eyes shaking slightly, an awful expression on her young face.

"She must have been in a lot of pain to use stuff like that," she said, her voice breaking up slightly. "I can't imagine."

That just made Dominic feel worse—he had been so preoccupied with his new life that he'd been completely oblivious to whatever pain Anemone might be in.

He took the box back without saying anything and stepped over to the door. Gidget followed him quietly, though Dominic got the sense that she still wanted to say something, if only perhaps to try to cheer him up.

But as young as she was, however, Gidget seemed to understand that he didn't want to talk about it.

By the time the walked down the stairs and onto the street, a sizeable crowd had gathered around the 606, including a few local law enforcement officers, their black uniforms and jackboots now familiar to Dominic. They were doing much, just looking over the crowd, and lightly armed.

As he approached the 606, Dominic remember what Simon told him, about the administrator knowing Anemone and him were staying in the city because they would have never been allowed to settle here without permission. That meant that somehow the locals had to know about them, who they were and where they lived, and had at least consented to have them here. Simon had implied that the only way that would happen was if Dominic and Anemone were working with the locals.

But know that he thought about it, there could be another reason …

As a weapon, Anemone was essentially invaluable. The only girl to survive the Novak Foundation process to created a fake coralian. Even without TheEnd she was unique, a prize worth having.

Worth studying.

Dominic ground his teeth at the mere thought.

Matthew spotted them as soon as came into the street, and was now waving them over enthusiastically. Dominic and Gidget pushed their way past the crowd, who didn't seem to notice that there was a second member of Gekkostate and a Federation officer between them.

Reaching down as they made it besides the 606, Matthew helped pull them up one by one into the safety and relative tranquility of the cockpit. "You find it?" he asked, having to yell to be heard above the crowd.

Dominic and Gidget nodded and dropped into the seat.

The ride in the 606 was shorter than he remembered. Unlike the trip out when they'd had to watch where they were going and follow the streets, the return trip was made easy by the fact that Matthew had to do was head towards the huge spiraling tower in the distance.

The 606 was not intended as an urban vehicle. Dominic was surprised at how maneuverable it became in the hands of an expert pilot. And Matthew was clearly an ace, a deserved title if Dominic had anything to say about it.

They drove past the checkpoint at the foot of the tower without being stopped. The orange LFO was distinctive enough that no further positive ID was required. Gekkostate had also been assured by the security crew that they shouldn't bother with the checkpoints because they were intended to catch trouble makers, not world-wide heroes. Holland had almost seemed embarrassed to be offered electronic transit passes for all his vehicles, just in case. He declined.

Several trucks were stopped at the entrance tunnel. Matthew deftly moved around them as the personnel on the checkpoint waved him on. Once inside the tunnel they were plunged into darkness, the lights overhead elongated into thin streaks by their motion, flashing the cockpit intermittently as they passed.

With the 606's headlights on the path ahead looked to be no more than two brilliant circles of passing gray concrete. Beyond there was only black nothingness.

After a few second they exited the tunnel, rolling into a large bustling bay at the base of the tower. This was the administration's car pool, where all the vehicles were worked on and stored when not in use. There were civilians and mechanics, along the security forces, moving around the spacious done-like cavern. Dominic could see a dozen humanoid KLFs—including Simon's red, severely banged-up unit—as well as trucks, motorcycles, cars, vans, and even several tram cars for the mass transit system.

Matthew turned left, following a yellow line on the ground marked 'ACCESS ROUTE: MAIN ELEVATOR'.

The 606 came to a stop inside a gleaming square of light, and Dominic looked up see a matching square directly above them on the roof. A loud blaring filled his ears and he felt a rumble under his seat.

Slowly, the elevator began lifting the 606 upwards.

"I don't like this," Matthew said. "How they let us go around everywhere we want. If they are really so concerned with security they'd at least stop us to check we haven't picked anything up."

"Maybe they trust us," Gidget said.

On the front seat, Matthew snorted. "I doubt it. You know how they say the best way to hide something is in plain view? I think that's what they are doing. They don't want us to get suspicious so they let us anywhere we want."

"No," Dominic said. "That wouldn't work. Eventually we'd run into whatever they want to hide. Because you can't hide something in plain sight forever. You just can't."

"But they don't have to hide it forever," Matthew said suspiciously. "Just until we leave. The real problem for us is that I don't think Holland wants to get involved any deeper than we already are."

"Gekkostate not wanting to get involved?" Dominic said with slight sarcasm. "That's a new one."

Gidget nudged him in the ribs. "Just because you are wearing that uniform doesn't mean you can be smarmy. If it's gonna make you go all Federation on us you might as well take it off."

"Sorry."

"At any rate," Matthew continued, ignoring his comments, turning in his seat to look back them, "if something bad really is going on it's not like we can ignore it. That's not how we do things. But Holland knows we have to be careful. This is a very explosive situation. Totally explosive."

Dominic could definitely agree with that. Clutching the little make-up box more tightly in his hands, he asked, "Have you met the administrator? What's-his-name."

"Odilo." Matthew shook his head. "No. Only Holland, Talho, and Hap did. They said he made them want to kill him. So I guess he made quite an impression. Holland's decided to avoid him and anyone from his staff. I think he reminded him of Dewey. Except, you know, fatter."

"Doesn't sound like someone we'd want to meet," Gidget said.

"The problem is that he runs the show, Simon said so. There doesn't seem to be any sort of power check placed on the administration. And you know what they say about absolute power," Dominic said. "I think there's hardly ever been an exception to that."

Matthew shook his head. "Dewey proved there isn't. Your intentions in gaining power might honorable at first—ideals and promises and all that—but it in the end, power itself becomes the motivation. Besides, history records your actions, not your intentions. It's what you do that matters. That might be why Holland never fit in with Dewey."

"I read his file," Dominic said, trying not to sound reproachful. "He did fit in. He fit in until Ciudades del Cielo."

"Alright, true," Matthew admitted. "He did. But that's only because he believed in what he was doing. And once that illusion was shattered, he didn't dwell on it. Other people would have spent months, years maybe, trying to decide what to do—if they ever did anything. Holland took action. Even if it meant leaving his entire life behind. And we all made a similar sacrifice, because we believed in him."

A memory was triggered in Dominic's mind. "I know you don't want to hear it," he said, "but Dewey could made you believe in him as well. Many of those closest to him saw him as father figure—take the Ageha kids, for example. And myself and Anemone, along with the U.F. And all the otherwise decent people who followed him."

"The difference is that Dewey used and discarded people at his whim. Holland only uses people because he's a leader and there's no other way to get things done. And lately, he's been unwilling to do even that."

"He should be a politician," Dominic said.

Matthew laughed. "Nobody would vote for him. They'd be too busy trying to get his autograph."

The elevator came to a stop on the hangar floor, barely twenty yards from the Gekko. The huge cavern was dimly lit, and mostly empty except for a few military personnel working on even more vehicles. There were also several civilian craft on this level laying around half-assembled as if somebody had started to take them apart and then stopped midway. Dominic realized they seemed to have been cannibalized for components—the craft had probably been confiscated from their private owners.

Matthew drove the remaining distance with barely a touch on the acceleration pedal under his foot.

Holland was sitting at the base of the entrance ramp, his gaze on the 606 as the canopy slid back and its occupants climbed out. When he saw Dominic's uniform he snorted loudly in distaste. "You gotta be kidding."

"What?" Dominic pretended not to understand. "You have one too, don't you?"

"For sentimental reason," Holland replied quickly, his narrow eyes looking the young Lieutenant up and down.

"Same here." Dominic tucked the box under his arm.

Holland stood. His posture was slouched, tired. Like Dominic, he probably wasn't sleeping well.

"Come on," he said. "Anemone is still out. But she's …" he trailed off cautiously, then sighed. "I'll let Mischa explain. Matthew, get the 606 inside. Gidget, I want you back at the radio station in case Hilda checks in."

They both nodded. Gidget handed Dominic the backpack with the things she'd brought from their apartment and walking quickly past them. Matthew closed the canopy of the 606 and honked his horn, telling them to get out of the way.

Dominic followed Holland up the ramp, their steps echoing eerily in the Gekko's empty hangar.

* * *

Anemone lay curled up on her side underneath the white sheets, her long pink hair spread around almost completely covering the pillow. She had an IV line hooked up to the receptacle on the side of her neck. And it was clear to Dominic, as he looked down at her wrinkled features, clenched jaw, and pressed lips, that she was in a lot of pain.

He had been sitting besides her since coming into the room in the Gekko's infirmary, carefully studying her to determine just how worried he should be. Judging by what Mischa was saying, very. Gulliver was quietly settled in his lap.

Dominc turned his gaze to Mischa, who was standing nearby. "Can't you give her something?"

"I've given her the highest dose of sedatives recommended for her body weight," she said. "I think even that may have been too much. She's clearly hyper-sensitive to medication. Speaking of which..." She looked at the make-up box now placed on the bed.

Dominic nodded. "When did it start?"

"Shortly after you left," Mischa said, picking up the box and peering at the contents. "Her beta waves have been spiking ever since. REM would indicate a deep dream-like state. Her body might be shut down, but her mind is going into overdrive. And, as you can plainly see, it's not a pleasant feeling. Um..."

She was looking at the drugs. She held up one of the little glass bottles and read the label. "Do you know where might have gotten these?"

"No idea." Dominic returned his gaze to Anemone, slowly reaching out to grasp her hand just to let her know he was there. "Black Market probably. What are they?"

"Stimulants commonly believed to be helpful in the treatment of Desperation Illness. They can also be used as anti-depressants. Not very rare or even expensive."

Something sparked in Dominic's mind. "The man that ran Joy Division said that all subjects like Anemone suffered from Desperation Illness." He paused. "I saw them. It's true."

"Maybe there's a correlation," Mischa said speculatively. "Though Desperation Illness has by and large disappeared, we are far from understanding it. However, no new cases have been reported since the Second Summer of Love. Most theoreticians now believe the disease itself might have been deeply linked with or related in some other way to the coralians. It is unlikely that she's suffered some kind of relapse. But more probable is that she wanted the drugs for their mood enhancing effects."

"Are you saying she's depressed?" Dominic said. "If that's the case, why wouldn't she ask to see a doctor?"

Mischa put the little bottle back in its shinny box. "Considering her background, why would she want to?"

She was right. After all the experiments, if there was someone that would never want to see another man in a white coat or be in a sterile environment, it would be Anemone. He still couldn't forget what he'd seen in Warsaw. And he'd only been there briefly. Anemone grew up there, isolated, being worked on like an animal. She had never spoken of it, not a word, and Dominic had not wanted to bring it up. But something that horrible had to haunt her, because the girl she became was the result of all that.

From the start Dominic had thought there was something about her ... something that didn't quite make sense, didn't click. It wasn't until he saw who girls like Anemone were made that he realized--

"There's also another reason," Mischa said. "You."

Dominic looked at her, puzzled. "Me?"

"I am not a psychologist, but she was probably afraid of what you'd think."

There was an empty feeling left in the wake of those word as if something had been taken out from inside his chest. And a kind of awful sinking sensation. Dominic turned his head back to Anemone, now squeezing her hand very tightly.

He had suspected that for a while. To him it was almost obvious. But having someone else say it simply turned that suspicion into a fact. Anemone had hidden this because she thought he wouldn't understand.

Maybe even leave her.

"I ..." he started, wanting to hear himself say it, and hoping that somehow in her troubled mind, far away, Anemone could hear him too. "I would have tried to help her. I would have done anything to help her. I wouldn't have ... left."

It was his fault. In the wind whirl that followed the destruction of coralian control cluster and his rescuing of Anemone, he had never thought that dealing with other people was something she had no experience with. Anemone took people at face value, judged them by what they did and how they treated her, and also by how others had done the same. And then, with so limited experience, she was thrust into a deeply personal and meaningful relationship with him.

Of course she would transfer her fears onto him. Of course she would think he'd leave her. Everything in her experience pointed to that. But Dominic knew that it wasn't just about been left alone.

What Anemone feared was what the scientists would have done; what Dewey would have done, and did try to do near the end when her combat effectiveness waned.

Being replaced.

She had failed to understand, perhaps right from the start; he was not like any of those people. He loved her.

And he could no more replace her than replace his own heart.

Dominic sighed heavily. He leaned forward, gently brushing away long strands of hair from her face and caressing her cheek. Her expression softened, just a bit. Her lips parted, trembling. "Anemone ... I'm sorry."

"Don't be ridiculous," Mischa's annoyed voice reached his ears from behind, but  
Dominc didn't turn to look at her. All his attention remained on Anemone.

"Whatever her reasons might have been, and however she or you would like to justify it, the fact remains that she did this to herself," she said coldly. "And until you realize that, then you won't be able to ever help her. Because this isn't your problem. It's hers."

He rounded on her, his face angry. "How can you say that?" he yelled. "This isn't her fault. Do you know what they did to her? How can you blame her?"

Mischa sighed. "I am not blaming her. I am simply saying that ultimate responsibility lies with her."

Dominic glared daggers at her.

He was about to respond when the EEG, the machine that monitored Anemone's brain activity, simply went nuts.

And she clutched his hand with the sort of violent strength born out of desperation, and her eyes shot wide open, utter terror bringing tears around purple irises. And she screamed—a blood curling shriek unlike anything Dominic had ever heard before.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Her whole body buckled violently. Dominic jumped up, sending Gulliver squealing in terror to the ground, and held her down against the bed.

"GET AWAY!" she screamed.

Mischa was by his side immediately, and before he had even realized it she was helping restrain Anemone.

Dominic looked at her, eyes wide. "Do something! Give her some sedatives! Something!"

"I can't!" Mischa yelled back, her voice distorted by the strain of holding down the violently thrashing girl. "Her biochemistry is all screwed up. A higher dose might send her into cardiac arrest."

But Dominic wasn't really listening.

"DO SOMETHING!" he screamed, hearing the panic in his own voice.

"Hold her!" Mischa reached back. She had placed the make-up box on the bed, and it was about to get kicked by Anemone when Micsha grabbed it. She opened it and took out the injector and one of the bottles. She looked at the label for a split second, before quickly inserting it into the loading fitting on the back of the device.

Dominic realized immediately what she was going to do.

"You can't! It's because of that crap that she's like this!"

Mischa moved placed a hand firmly on Anemone's shoulder, pushing against her with all strength. "It might help calm her down. Hold her head."

"What the--" Holland suddenly appeared at the door, attracted by the loud commotion. His was a mixture of annoyance and concern. "What's going on?"

"Holland, help," Mischa said.

Holland rushed to the bed, practically jumping in and wrapping his arms tightly around Anemone who kept trashing around in the sheets.

"Dominic!" Mischa turned her head to the younger man now on the bed with her. "Hold her head. Don't let it move."

There was no time to think. No time to consider if this would work or simply make things worse.

They had to do something. It was better than just watching Anemone like this.

He did as he was told. Working together, the three of them managed to restrain Anemone bodily until she could barely move from the weight placed on top of her as they climbed on top of her. It was enough to allow Dominic to take hold of her head in his hands and hold it firmly in place. For the first he got a good look at her face. Her features were an exaggerated mask of pain, eyes so wide that her strangle purple irises seemed incredibly small, the red stripe running diagonally across them barely visible. And they were brimming with tears.

In the noise and chaos, Dominic had failed to notice that she was crying. "Please, help me ..." she said weakly, her voice breaking apart.

Dominic could only stare. His own eyes shaking.

Mischa pulled the IV line out and moved the injector carefully to the receptor under Anemone's neck, and slowly slipped the needle inside. It made a distinctive slinking noise Dominic had heard many times before.

"Dominic ..." her voice came again, weaker. "Help me..."

He could not look at her anymore. He closed his eyes tightly, only feeling the tears as they began to run down his cheeks. "I'm sorry."

The injector delivered its dose with a quiet hiss.

"Dominic ..."

He did not even notice that Anemone was no longer struggling. That she was now lying still on the bed. Holland and Mischa picked themselves up, exchanging worried glances, but Dominic felt an enormous weight push his head down until it was nestled in the crook of Anemone's neck.

His tears were rubbing off on her soft skin.

"Is she alright?" Holland asked.

Mischa quickly took the girl's pulse. "It's stable."

"What happened?"

"I don't know." Mischa was shaking her head. "With many cases, withdrawal can be tempered by giving the body what it wants. It isn't healthy, but it provides a calming agent in emergency situations. I can't say I understand how her body works, however. At this stage, I'd need to know what Dewey's researchers did to her."

Dominic tried not to listen. Not to think. It was too painful. He heard Anemone's breathing, now having slowed down to virtually nothing. He could feel her heartbeat, just inches away but seeming like miles and miles.

He didn't know if Holland and Mischa were staring at him, and he didn't care. They could think of him whatever they wanted.

"I'm sorry, Anemone," he sobbed. "I couldn't make you happy. I'm sorry."

And then a soft, slender hand lovingly touched his cheek.

"Don't ... cry ..."

It was Anemone's touch.

Dominic opened his eyes. Slowly, he lifted himself on his arms, carefully so as not to let the hand slip away, and looked down. Into a pair of half closed purple eyes. "Anemone?"

"My happiness?" she said, her only a whisper. "The only happiness I've known in a long time ... is being with you. But ... there's no point in being happy ... when you know it can't last."

"Is that why you ..." Dominic began asking, trying not to sound angry or callous, but trailed off when he realized that the questing was simply too painful. He wasn't angry with her. He was just hurt.

"I was ... afraid," Anemone said lethargically before she fell quiet.

Dominic nodded. That was enough. He placed his hand on top of hers, knotting their fingers together. He wanted to kiss her but thought he might embarrass her in front of the others. "I've been worried sick about you."

"Where are we?" she asked with a hint of curiosity.

He looked towards Holland and Mischa. "On board the Gekko. Gekkostate's been helping me take care of you. And Mischa used to look after Eureka. She can look after you too."

With that, Mischa stepped closer, and Dominic noticed her usually stern demeanor had softened. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know. My head is all woozy," Anemone said. "And I'm thirsty. And very hungry."

"We'll fix you something," Holland said, coming closer. Gulliver seemed to think it was safe now and was trying eagerly to climb onto the bed, clawing at the mattress with his front paws and making soft mewling noises. Holland scooped him up and laid him carefully by Anemone's side. "Pizza alright?"

Mischa made a face. "I really don't think—"

"Pizza sounds good," Anemone said weakly. "Do you have some ice cream?"

Mischa threw up her arms in annoyance. "Fine. Why listen to me? I'm just the only certified medical professional on the ship."

"I think we do." Holland ignored Mischa protest, answering Anemone's question instead. He placed a hand on Dominic's shoulder. "If we happen to run out we'll just have to raid the nearest shop."

Dominic looked up at him then noticed Anemone was pressing her lips together, as if she wanted to say something but was holding back. Holland noticed this as well, and a more serious look came to his face.

A grim expression of regret.

"I've already told this to Dominic," he said, "but it's only fair that I tell you too. I can't ask for forgiveness for what my brother did to you. I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. For a long time I thought about you only as an enemy without knowing anything about you. That black LFO and all. Eureka was someone I'd known from the beginning. She was a coralian. But you … I can't excuse what happened to you. But what I can do is offer you what I have."

Anemone frowned. "It was you, wasn't it?" she said. "That LFO I shot down for getting in my way. When I was chasing them into the zone. Why would you … need me to forgive you?"

"You did what any other ace would have done. What I would have done if I could have. You were better than me. That doesn't make us even."

"I'm not an ace," Anemone said miserably, and Dominic knew she was remembering loosing TheEnd. "Not anymore."

"You could say that technically neither am I. I've totaled two LFOs and almost did in a third yesterday. That's a pretty bad record for an ace. But there's more to it than that. Being an ace means being willing to sacrifice yourself. It means having the courage to do anything to protect those you love." His face was warm, open as he said this. A change from the hardened, swaggering pilot he usually was. "It means having something to fly for."

And he turned his head.

And Dominic realized then that Talho was standing on the door, a hand draped across her belly, and it hit him. Holland wasn't just talking about Anemone. How long she'd been there was anyone's guess.

"I have that something," Holland said. "And so do you."

Talho was now smiling.

"Very few people truly have that. We are lucky that way, you and me. And those we want to protect." He turned to Anemone again. "Don't worry about anything. I have a feeling that as long as you have Dominic by your side, you will always have a reason to fly."

Dominic was still holding her hand to his face. He felt Anemone tugging but didn't release her, and before he knew it found his own hand being pulled down and pressed against her chest. Just above her heart. "Lucky us, I guess," he said.

Anemone said nothing, but her brooding silence told Dominic she wasn't feeling very lucky at the moment. And he knew what she was thinking from the utterly miserable look on her face.

Holland was just trying to cheer her up through the mutual link he believed they shared—that of LFO pilots. To give her hope. His intentions were good, sincere, but he was ignorant of the reality. Dominic realized that must have been how Anemone listened to him. The honest meaning of his words was lost, because of what she knew better than anyone.

She no longer had any wings.

* * *

Hilda peered through the binocular from the high bluff on which she had concealed both herself and the 808. The camouflage net was something that hadn't been used in a long time—possibly since Holland had stolen the Gekko—but came in rather handy in situations where stealth was more important than brawn.

And not everyone could make a living out of smashing up LFOs like Holland.

She looked behind her resentfully, but the camo net made all the dents Holland had put on the 808 invisible. But she knew they were there … marring the surface of the otherwise shinny baby-blue armor.

Putting her feelings on the matter aside for now, Hilda turned her attention back to the binoculars. It was rather self-serving to worry about something like that now. There were much more serious problems around here than a few banged-up bits of metal.

As much as Holland would have liked to argue against Simon's words, relayed to Gekkostate by Dominic, there was no ignoring the fact that the local administration had launched a full military assault with dozens of unarmed civilians in the middle, and something had been amiss since the beginning even if they hadn't been able to quite figure out what.

Now they knew.

Now the full consequence of their actions were coming back to haunt them.

Because through the binoculars Hilda could see what could only be described as a concentration camp.

She had heard about places like this before, but never actually seen one. The buildings were long and gray, more than dozen of them, surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence and several watchtowers. On the far eastern end there was what looked like an old factory. In fact, the layout was more like of an industrial complex than that of an actual camp. Hilda guessed that was the point—seen from the air it would look like nothing more than a factory, which could be found abundantly in most cities.

Through the binoculars she could only see masses of people, walking about, clustering together in groups. She was too far out to make out faces, or ages.

Mercifully.

Hilda had been feeling put-upon since Holland smashed her LFO, but looking at this she realized that it wasn't simply a sense of annoyance she felt anymore. Her stomach felt empty and yet full, she felt cold even though the noon sun was at the height of its arch.

She had seen a lot, but looking at these people … she felt sick.

Putting down the binoculars, Hilda fought the urge to throw up. It was a fleeting thing, simply filling the gap between shocked outrage and furious anger, between the thought of doing something and the act.

She took a deep, steadying breath, slipping the binoculars back into the pouch hanging over her hip, and looked over at the 808. The radio wasn't working, only hissing and static. She could go back and inform Holland—her mission was only to scout after all—but now that she was here that seemed one of the hardest decisions of her life.

Refugees, criminals, whatever these people were, she had to find out; she had to be sure before she told Holland.

Careful to keep a low profile, she crawled under the camo netting and scrambled up the side of the 808. She turned the small handle just bellow the cockpit and pulled out, opening the storage container located underneath the pilot's seat. From here she withdrew an SMG.

Hilda checked the safety and the magazine to make sure it was full then locked it into place with soft metallic 'click'. She grabbed spares, a few hundred rounds in all, and slipped them into her pouch.

With the SMG now strapped across her shoulders, a look of resolve on her face, Hilda moved out from under the camo net and began working her way down the slope. The shrubbery on the cliffs was thick and green, making both herself and the 808 nearly impossible to see from bellow, but as she moved closer to the camp's perimeter it became thinner.

She had spotted a nice path from above, where the earth sank down into a crevasse that ran parallel to the perimeter for a few hundred meters but eventually curved closer inwards, affording her good cover as she moved. It crossed underneath an access road, and she could see a large metal pipe on the other side, presumably leading inside the perimeter.

It was only when the path came to an end besides the road that she started to think this wasn't such a good idea. Even if she managed to get a better look there was still no way for her to be certain of what was happening. No, to do that she would have to get inside.

Somehow, as sick as it sounded, Hilda had the feeling that getting into a concentration camp was actually harder than it seemed.

She was lying flat on the incline that rose from the path into the road above when she heard a noise, like yelling. She reached into her hip pouch and pulled out her binoculars and turned towards the camp. The gate was perhaps a hundred yards away.

And she saw a young girl running from inside the camp towards the gate. There was more yelling, and the dull hammering of warning shots. The girl kept running. She was holding something in her hand.

Another shot. The girl dropped to the ground, spraying a thick mist of blood as she fell, which she seemed to do in slow motion.

Hilda almost screamed in rage.

Almost.

Because as soon as the girl's body hit the ground, a gigantic bright yellow fireball engulfed it. And everything around it. Hilda looked away from the blinding flash, but the boom was deafening and very painful even at this distance. The ground shook as if from an earthquake. When she looked again, the gate and the guards were no more.

And she heard yelling, hundreds of voices. And the unmistakable sounds of battle.

* * *

To be continued…

* * *

Notes: Finally, geez! I was starting to think my prereader had gotten caught smuggling chihuahuas across the border or something. Here's chapter three. I shouldn't have to urge you review at this point but you really should because this writing thing is far too time consuming and it's hard to find the time if no one reads it. I mean, that's kinda why Genocide will never get finished—it's done in my head and three reviews for the 30,000 words of the latest two chapters isn't enough incentive for me to bother writing the rest. So yeah, if you like tell me so—if you don't like it, I'll take that too. If you are silently just going to put this in your favorites, the least you can do is say SOMETHING. Peace out.


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